Stars in December
by heroes for ghosts
Summary: CHAP 11 UP Kitty and Pete try to adjust to their new accomodationsliving and being on a team together.
1. Default Chapter

Note: This takes place a few weeks after the events of Say Yes, so it's recommended that you read that first. This is the beginning of my own little special timeline (yay!) and for more info go to www.geocities.com/glittergrr/futreindex. PLEASE (I hate it, but I aint too proud to beg :P ) review… it's the only way writers like me know that there is any point in going on and you like what you read. Thanks!  
  
Stars in December  
  
She had taken to walking the halls of the institute at night, barefoot. Every night a different route, every night it didn't matter where she ended up or when she stopped walking. She only slept three hours a night anyway.  
  
She was doing just about everything in her power to burn herself out.  
  
She didn't want to do this anymore. She didn't want the hide behind the tough exterior of fearless leader and pretend she had any clue what she was talking about, pretend that she wasn't scared of death. She didn't want to pretend that she thought she was a good leader. She knew she wasn't.  
  
Lately, just the sigh of her teammates' faces pained her. Jono and Sarah's still enthusiastic youth, Rachael's blind passion for something, anything, to redeem her, it all wore her down. Bobby was both the worst and the best. He understood her in a way she wouldn't have guessed at first. He knew what it was to have simple dreams about a simple life and be forced to throw them away because of a few twisted genes. His face understood; but it also reminded her of what she had become.  
  
Every night, she walked aimlessly for hours. Every morning, she found herself on the bathroom floor, doubled over, leaning over the toilet. Piotr had moved himself into her room but he didn't know about her night walks, and he certainly didn't know about her morning sickness.  
  
Morning sickness. God, she feared that was what it was. She feared it was that simple.  
  
And yet, part of her hoped with all of her heart that it was that simple. She would step down as leader with an understandable excuse to get her out of both the team and the country. Piotr and Charles would have a few choice words for her, but she could take it. In the end, how cruel could they be to a pregnant woman?  
  
And then it struck her.  
  
What if it was Piotr's?  
  
She had automatically assumed it to be Pete's. He was the last one she had slept him. After leaving England, she hadn't let Piotr touch her. Be he had certainly touched her before.  
  
And then she would have been with Pete when she was with someone else's child….oh god.  
  
If it was Piotr's, it was all off. Charles would be overjoyed, another follower into the fold and while she might get out of leading for a while, she wouldn't be able to leave them. She would need them more than ever, for the money, for the shelter, for the support, for the family.   
  
And Piotr- god, Piotr would be ecstatic. She wouldn't be able to hold him off anymore and then it would be all over. She would belong to him and that would be it for the rest of her life. She thought of Jean and Scott, of their ridiculous soap opera lives, of their obligation to everyone else. She felt sick to her stomach and she knew it wasn't just from the morning sickness.  
  
So she didn't say anything. She continued leading them, fighting next to them, training with them and sleeping next to him. She didn't walk so far at night anymore. Instead, she would walk outside and sit on the cold stairs, staring off as far away as she could. She would try to figure out if the institute's gates were to keep everyone out, or to keep them all in.  
  
Every whisper that Piotr had given her, every encouraging smile that Charles had cast upon her, every word of advice Scott had issued her- they all served as another panel of fence, gating her in.  
  
Kitty wasn't used to feeling tapped. She was used to talking through traps, walking through gates and fences. But she was helpless now, prisoner to her faltering heart and her growing stomach.  
  
She was a prisoner to her anxiety, the terror that prevented her from receiving answers. She would take not knowing over the pain of knowledge.  
  
But she couldn't do it forever.  
  
******  
  
He had taken to sleeping every second that he was allowed to, spending every possible moment in a hazy drunken slumber.  
  
He found he could sleep for days on end if he had drunk enough. The time to beat currently stood at 42 hours.  
  
Of course, it was harder to do it now that she was around. Every afternoon if he was still in bed, blissfully passed out, she would come roaring in, tearing off his sheets, cursing at him in a dead language, threatening to do ungodly things to him if he didn't pull himself together.  
  
She had a point. He was making on hell of a shitty leader.  
  
When he didn't manage to stumble to meetings, he would sometimes have trouble identifying the people who sat around him, looking up with blank faces. But he always recognized her, standing in the back against the wall, scowling at him, as three of her four arms rested on various places on her hip, her fourth idly running through her long dark hair.  
  
Part of him was surprised that he hadn't been throw out by now. But he knew she was protecting him, making up some excuse for his behavior even as she acted as leader in his place. All of him wondered what sort of deviant action it would take before they finally got wise and booted him. Why didn't they understand it was what he wanted? To waste away in a filth-ridden bed, his liver sputtering in poisoned gasps.  
  
He wasn't even allowed that simple fate.  
  
As he watched Kali talking to the others, her four arms animating everything she said, he wondered why he couldn't self-destruct in more socially productive ways. She was gorgeous and fierce and would be able to crush the pain out of him for one night. She wouldn't think it meant anything, that it was more than one night and get weird.  
  
He suddenly remembered words spoken to him weeks ago and he felt too hollow to cry.  
  
So what if he decided to drink himself dumb? So what if he was a coward, a ghost of a man, not brave enough to make a simple trans-Atlantic flight and leave his regrets behind? Apparently, his father had been right all this time.  
  
Pete was absolutely one hundred percent pathetic.  
  
Some days, he would amend to make things better and would swear off alcohol, meeting and training the others, even sometimes sitting with them and simply talking. But there was always something.  
  
Kali would jokingly mention the trials of being a mutant goddess and he would think of the wind witch, the mother in law from hell.  
  
Hugh would prattle on about the advantages of magik over mutant powers and he would think of the best friend, the dead blonde girl that he might have shared her name with a possible daughter.  
  
Cloe would sit and speak carefully, watching him meticulously and he knew she was analyzing him and he would think of the only thing that could possibly make him better.  
  
Will would be fine, until Pete started noticing his German accent and he would think of the blur furred gypsy priest, of the Scottish island and the laughter at night.  
  
Red would flirt with him ruthlessly, and he would look into the wide eyes of this girl and he would think of another pairs of eyes that were liquid, containing so much hidden fear.  
  
Kent would try hard, commiserating and the flighty nature of birds and he would think about the idiotic nature of blokes.  
  
And then it would be back to the drinking and the sleeping and Kali's disgusted looks. Hey, he told himself, maybe he wasn't functioning, but at least he was predictable.  
  
He went on half of the missions drunk. He didn't care. He would run into the enemy fire first, crazed with bloodlust and drunk off his ass and as long as he brought all of his kids home, he didn't care. He kept waiting for the enemy to outfox him and he would fall to the ground, dead. It hadn't come yet.  
  
But his luck wouldn't hold up forever.  
  
*****  
  
Marrow caught her on one of her midnight barefoot walks. Kitty was heading to the front door when she cut her off, looking suspiciously at the older woman.  
  
"What are you doing, pretty Kitty?" Sarah growled. No matter how much rank Kitty had over the Morlock girl, the nickname wouldn't go away.  
  
"I'm walking. What does it look like I'm doing?" Kitty snapped back. She took a deep breath and was about to apologize when she realized this was Marrow. Snapping at her only made the girl respect Kitty that much more.  
  
Kitty continued walking, ignoring Marrow even as she followed her out of the door and out onto the stares. When she sat down, the girl was right next to her.  
  
"I don't think Petey would appreciate his kitty running out on him in the middle of the night," Marrow said. She smirked. "What are you doing, meeting some tomcat, or somethin'?"  
  
Kitty sighed, inwardly grinning at Marrow's conceit, corny as it was.  
  
"I thought I was the leader here," she said, smiling slightly at Sarah. "I get to ask you why you're up and about."  
  
Marrow shrugged, looking out at the gates in the distance. "Jono snores in my head when he sleeps. I need someone else's problems to distract me."  
  
Kitty raised an eyebrow. "You and Jono?" Kitty inwardly kicked herself. She had been so hung up on her own problems, her own pathos that she hadn't even noticed that two of her teammates had begun sleeping together. It was only natural, of course. Jono and Sarah understood each other, and the force of battle often made instant couples, the desire to share a bed with someone almost undeniable.  
  
She felt like crying. She understood that desire.  
  
"Hey, fearless leader?" Kitty snapped back to attention, looking back over at Marrow. "When you think your gonna get around to telling everyone your knocked up?"  
  
Kitty's mouth fell open. "You knew?" she finally managed.  
  
A noncommittal shrug from Marrow. "With the Morlocks, we didn't have any doctors or nothing. You start to get real good at recognizing the signs of being in the family way pretty quickly." She looked over at Kitty, smirking. "So who's the fellow fornicator?"  
  
Kitty snorted out a laugh and then sobered. "Would you believe me if I said I wasn't sure?"  
  
"Oh, Pretty Kitty's popular."  
  
Kitty smiled. "Shut up." She needed this conversation, this feeling of girl talk even if Kitty was older than Marrow, even if they were on two different positions of power, even if they had completely different backgrounds.  
  
Marrow stood to leave. "Look," she said, her voice serious, "I don't like giving advice about as much as I don't like getting it. But I think its time for you to suck it up and talk to McCoy."  
  
She listened to the footsteps, the sound of the door closing, the faint footfalls on the other side of the wall. She knew Marrow was right. She placed a hand over her stomach and didn't feel so alone.  
  
*****  
  
He was back in his more drunken period, except now Red had ganged up with Kali and neither were letting him sleep all day. The two were trying to draft Cloe into their mission to sober him up, but the woman was too sophisticated to dirty her hands in Pete's vomit.   
  
Not that Pete could blame him. Even he didn't want to dirty his hands with himself anymore.  
  
He sighed, leaning against the window and gazing out at the London streets, the cars, the huddled people. He had drunk so much that even the idea of alcohol instantly put him into a hangover. Red was tagging around more than ever, batting her pretty eyes and whispering things in silky Swedish. The weeks since had had last seen Kit were slowly filtering by.  
  
It was just a matter of time before something gave.  
  
*****  
  
Kitty stumbled out of McCoy's lab. She had sworn him to secrecy, so that she could be the one to deliver the good news.  
  
Good news. Heh.  
  
She had hated how Hank had beamed at her, how Charles had insisted on being there when the results were announced, how he had assured her that he knew definitively that the paternity test was accurate, how he had boasted that he was maintaining some telepathic contact with her unborn child, even giving away the fact that it was a girl. No surprises. She hated how she needed to be reassured, needed to be convinced that yes, this was her fate.  
  
She put a hand on her stomach and hated herself for hating the life growing inside of her.  
  
She walked back to Piotr and she knew she was trapped.  
  
******  
  
So what do you all think? Reviews please! I'll love you forever, give you shout outs AND name my first born after you, lol. 


	2. Red in the Darkness

Title: Red in the Darkness  
  
Note: This is just an interlude from the plot of Stars in December. Red, who appears to be a slut and airhead, is actually one of my favorite new characters. This is just a little background info onto the character, and I hope that you like her too. Read and review pwease!!!  
  
*********  
  
I know what you're thinking.  
  
You think I'm stupid. You think I'm some stereotypical bimbo slut from Sweden who bats her pretty little eyes to hide the emptiness in her head.  
  
God, how I wish you were right.  
  
If you only had an idea how much is in my head. Everything's there. Every word I've ever read, every conversation I've ever had, and every color that's painted my world, every careless flick of the wrist. It's all there and it isn't going anywhere.  
  
They are the only things I have. I have no family, they having all been killed when I was young, in Sweden. I fell into the generous hands of Swedish social services, bounced around for a few years. I landed into a barren house with a few other misplaced children. I was the oldest, and I was being bombarded with puberty.  
  
The man of the house noticed.  
  
To say the least.  
  
And my mutant power manifested then, just as he finished and was whipping himself clean in my hair. I nearly screamed, instead biting down on my lip to keep myself quiet. He left me there among the woods, gnawing away at myself while every lie he said, the texture of his tongue jammed in my mouth, the pain of him entering. It was all there, everything. And I knew at that moment that it was not going to go away.  
  
I tiptoed back to the house, and all I could see were the individual markings of every blade of grass I had ever walked upon and all the details of his stomach, of his chest on top of me.  
  
I saw the lay out of the den and I knew where he kept the gun. I saw how he had cleaned it, and loaded it, aiming before firing into the forests and I knew how to shoot the gun. I saw the weak floor boards of the stairs and I knew which steps to avoid.  
  
His wife slept through the entire thing, dead to the world next to him. I had pressed the gun into his wife, whispered to him not to even think of talking. Then I reached down.  
  
I have to admit that I was impressed with his ability to keep quiet even through that. Then again, I suppose he was more terrified of losing his head rather then his precious balls.  
  
Those moments are the only moments that I am glad to have this ability, this perfect photographic memory.  
  
Because the memories never really leave me, you know. They're just in there, perfectly crafted. I can bury them for a bit and maybe sometimes even ignore them but they're just there under the surface, always. I can bring any of them up without effort. But it does hurt. I can't deny that.  
  
There's so many other things that I wish I could deny. I could say that I have never killed anyone, but my memories of death rattles would give me away. I could say that I have never thought of killing myself, but the memories of emergency rooms would give me away, as well as the scars on my wrist.  
  
Not that anyone would notice. My wrists aren't exactly the first body parts that men look at, if you know what I mean. And that's fine, because that's what I want.  
  
What, you think I dress slutty just for the fun of it?  
  
Ha.  
  
People underestimate me, write me off as just another bubble headed mutant girl, trailing after the leader, drooling all over him. They see me as a piece of meat and don't consider me dangerous or powerful and even think that I'll throw myself out anything with the right anatomy.  
  
Good. That's exactly what I want. Because they look past me then, through me. And I watch every move they make, commit it to memory and begin to plan how I can take them down.  
  
Pete alone understands all of this. He's a spy so he knows the tricks one can play, and he knows enough about my background to figure the rest out. And I see the way he looks at me. He can read me like a book while other people don't even think to pull the book off the shelf.  
  
But I can read him too. And when he stares at me, he's not seeing me.  
  
He's seeing her.  
  
I know everything about him. I could be perfect for him that way. I would be dedicated to him because he could be dedicated to me.  
  
I can't stand the way Cloe treats me with her condescending smile. Or Kali who tries to be friendly, but believes I am as sexually open as she is. I don't like letting a single man touch me, it hurts so much. I think that Kali hurts when no one touches her.  
  
The rest of the men, besides Pete, don't pay me much mind. I'm several years younger than all of them, still a baby in my twenties. They think it's a generational thing, my fake breezy sexuality and the way I flirt hatefully with all of them.  
  
But I don't care what they think. For some god-forsaken reason, it's only Pete that matters. I shouldn't even like him. He's a bastard, but he's real. And I need something real to hold on to something. I need someone who has equally screwed up in the past and who doesn't feel everything that I do. Someone real, but strong.  
  
That's Pete. Which doesn't make me happy. Because I know that nothing will ever happen. No matter how many times I flirt with him, how many times I'm there for him, I won't be the one.  
  
I look at him, and I memorize the flecks of dark blue and black in his eyes. He looks at me and sees through me to gaze across the ocean.  
  
And that's the way it is. 


	3. Maps: Bobby

Title: Maps  
  
Note: I was just curious if anyone who reads my Excalibur Evolution fic also reads this one..soooo, review me and let me know, ok?  
  
Anything but ordinary3- Oh, thanks! *blush* That has to be the best compliment I've gotten in a bit. And it's okay to have random outburst of hatred towards Jean! :P  
  
Sashi- Thanks for the encouragement and look, more!  
  
Harry2- WAY!  
  
Lanx- I rock at the svarmod and you know it baby. ;)  
  
Now on with the story! It's all from Bobby aka Iceman's POV.  
  
*********  
  
I didn't grow up with her. I was the generation before her, the first generation actually. She came after my time, after I went off looking for a real life. She was part of the golden generation, the generation that could do no wrong in Xavier's eyes. By the time I had grown disenfranchised and frustrated with the real world, she had left, gone off to become disenfranchised and frustrated.  
  
She had come back even quicker than I had.  
  
In the end, we all come back.  
  
Of course, we all had our different reasons. Scott kept coming back because it gave his life purpose, an explanation for all the bizarre events that happened in his life. Logan kept coming back because, really, he had nothing else. Piotr kept coming back because he was scared and he liked having someone like Xavier, someone omnipotent like that who could tell him what was best. Kurt kept coming back because of the gated walls, though he would never admit it.  
  
They kept coming back even when they were getting too old to fight.  
  
But I know that wouldn't happen to her. The only reason Kitty keeps coming back was to fight.  
  
I can understand it, really. I've felt that draw of fighting too, the attraction to the way that it defines everything so simply.  
  
But I've seen her eyes in the midst of battle, and I know that she feels a million things more than I do. And I'm glad, because I'm terrified by what I see in her eyes.  
  
I don't know her so well. Like I said, we're different generations. I don't know what's happened to her, all the little social whispers they keep out of the files. But something must have happened to her and something bad. She's one pissed off girl.  
  
She's so small, but she's all frustration and anger when you get her into combat. She doesn't kill per se, but she enjoys kicking the shit out of her opponents, you can tell that. Sometimes I watch her fight and I wonder who she's thinking about. Who makes her so mad that she wants to hurt them like this.  
  
Most of the time, I just follow her orders. I make small, meaningless steps to divorce myself from Xavier and the rest, a part of me still longing for that ordinary accountant life. But with staying here, I'm getting a sense of power that I could never get in a cubicle.  
  
So I guess we're all trapped here by our own insecurities, huh?  
  
Except Kitty, of course.  
  
I'm with a non-mutant, which I guess is my little dig to Xavier who, surprisingly, doesn't support us. For all of us talk about co-existence, he keeps encouraging me to date some girl with a codename like Sparks or Ghost girl or something.  
  
Nope, not for me. Maybe for Jono and Sarah and maybe for Piotr and Kitty who just got married, but not me.  
  
Maggie Macbeth is for me.  
  
Yeah, I know how ridiculous the last name is. I constantly tease her about it, my own little Lady Macbeth with the soiled hands. Her hands are regularly soaked in blood, actually; she's an ER doctor. She has long curly hair, wide blue eyes and freckles and she's all mine. I love her fiercely, in a way that scares me sometimes. I would say I'm protective of her, but she'd hate it if she thought I was constantly defending her and she'd probably hit me. She's very modern, this woman of mine.  
  
Maggie doesn't like Xavier about as much as he doesn't like her. There's something off with that man, she says. Her nose always scrunches up when she says that so her freckles form constellations and I can never take her seriously. She doesn't like how I keep coming back to Xavier. But she's never given me an ultimatum and I'm grateful for that.  
  
She does get along with the rest of the team, at least superficially. I took her to Piotr and Kitty's wedding and we stood off to the side for most of it. I pointed out everyone and told her why they all kept coming back.  
  
I was about to tell her about Kitty when she interpreted me. She doesn't keep coming back, she said. She's trapped.  
  
That's Maggie. Dramatic and empathetic. Of course, this was all before we found out that Kitty was pregnant with Piotr's baby which, I'll admit, kinda cheapened the whole thing for me.  
  
It wasn't your average wedding. Besides the fact that an angel was in attendance and the couple was married by a German demon, a lot of different people gave tributes to their love. I know that the best man and parents are usually supposed to say a few words, but during the wedding ceremony, before they had actually been married, Ororo, Scott, Xavier, Rachel and a few others had gone up to the front and had told stories about how much in love the two were. It reminded me of a funeral, the way you give eulogies while standing next to the body.  
  
It didn't seem to faze anyone else, so I said nothing. Since when does the Iceman ever interrupt a good time?  
  
Maggie hates it that I get called Iceman. She thinks it's childish and degrading. Of course, she calls me cube, as in ice cube so since when is she the one to talk?  
  
I really do love her, though. And she knows that and it makes her happy.  
  
But we're not necessarily your average couple. Besides the whole ice thing, I mean. Because at Kitty and Piotr's wedding, we stood together and watched as they come back down the aisle, man and wife. And I knew I was supposed to be overjoyed, my heart brimming with love for their love and in turn love for Maggie. But I didn't.  
  
Instead, I turned to her and whispered that I never wanted to get married.  
  
And her, being the modern woman that she is, agreed.  
  
She talked about it more in the car later, her jacket wrapped tight around her, her legs pulled up to her chest, fighting off the cold. She said a lot of big words, things like "marriage is colonization" and I drifted out for a while. I just listened to the authority in her doctor voice for a while.  
  
And then she stopped. She pulled her curly hair back which is something she does when she's being very serious. She looked at me driving.  
  
"Robert Drake," she said. She was being very solemn. "Promise me you won't be like them. Promise me one day you'll be able to walk away from Xavier and not go back."  
  
What could I say?  
  
We all go back in the end. 


	4. Maps: Jono

Title: Maps: Jono  
  
Note: Pretty much same events from Maps: Bobby, but from Jono's perspective. The song is Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, go listen to it because it is absolutely gorgeous. Anywho, these are all just little fluff bits before I get into the heavy stuff ;)  
  
Sue Penkivech- Thanks so much for the review! I absolutely love so many of your stories that it was such a kick to see your name on my review page. "From the Journal of Bobby Drake" really helped me see more into this character and pathos, past the funny kid image. I'd be honored if you kept reading.  
  
anything but ordinary3- Jean fans?! No way! Well, actually, come to think about it, I like tortured dark Jean.. but that's more Dark Phoenix and Maddie than anything else, so yes- I still hate Jean! YEAAAAH. Ahem. Thanks for all your reviews, they mean a lot but WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK IT AINT PIOTRS?! Gah! I can't convince a soul! lol  
  
don't stray my kind's your kind I'll stay the same  
  
pack up don't stray oh say say say  
  
wait they don't love you like I love you wait they don't love me like I love maps - Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs  
  
*hi*= telepathy  
  
*******************  
  
A couple of months ago, Rachel started trying to convince the rest of us that Kat was possessed.  
  
That bird went completely off her rocker.  
  
Not that I can blame her, I 'pose. If I went through half of the trans- dimensional time hopping that she did, I would be shaking in a loony bun, muttering about mental possession too.  
  
The worse was Kat and Piotr's wedding. After that, Xavier had a long meeting with her and then sent her off to Europe, to some Dr. Oliva who was 'posed to be a brilliant shrink.  
  
Kat should have been miserable that day. Here she was, getting married (and a month pregnant as we found out later) and her best friend and maid of honor attacked her, trying to exorcise some evil influence and had to be tranquilized and dragged off. But the girl's got balls, I'll give her that. Kat just sucked it up and went ahead with everything else, smiling like nothing was wrong.  
  
Xavier kept Rachel's whole breakdown hush hush of course. Only reason I know is 'cause I'm one sneaky 'path.  
  
But I know when to keep my mouth shut.  
  
And that's all the time or else everyone's dead.  
  
Heh. That was pretty bad.  
  
But you don't have half of your body missing without acquiring some gallows humor. And some angst. Okay, a whole lot of friggin angst. But when you sign up to be an X-Men, that's expected. So I was surprised, and impressed, when Kat didn't succumb to all that pathos.  
  
Good for her though, I thought. I figured that their love was so strong that something like your best friend's mental breakdown didn't even interfere.  
  
Looking back, I'm not sure if Kat even knew Rachel was gone.  
  
It was a good wedding though, nice reception. Everyone and their mother were there (its truth-Kurt and Mystique) and it served as one big reunion.  
  
Course, I don't particularly enjoy those, specially when enough of my team mates don't show up, being that they're dead and all. Sarah was feeling much the same, I think. After grabbing enough wine to make give a white boy rhythm, she disappeared to her room.  
  
Guess if Kat wasn't going to angst, Sarah was going to do it for her.  
  
Sarah's the kinda girl that doesn't take to dwelling in angst easily so when she does, you know it's bad. And she gets mad when she pouts, and things tend to get broken.  
  
When I found her, I knew it was going to be extra tough because her shoulder and back bones were out, like ivory quills. She growled slowly in the back of her throat when she heard me come in.  
  
*Calm down, gel* I projected as I stood in her doorway. *It's only me.*  
  
"That's precisely why I aint calm," she growled back.  
  
Great. *What've I done now?*  
  
"You came to bother me. That's enough."  
  
*Shut it. Get to the point, Sarah-what's wrong?*  
  
"Nothing."  
  
*Don't try lying to a telepath.*  
  
She sighed, turning to face me. Bones were jutting out from all sides of her face, scarring her in a way I hadn't seen in a long time. "I hate you up-worlders," she muttered.  
  
*Nothing new. What's wrong now?*  
  
"THIS is wrong!" she cried, pulling a long, clean bone from her cheek. "I don't belong down there with the stupid, pretty people and I'm never gonna be where Pretty Kitty is all because of this!" She stood up, pacing. Bones absentmindedly emerged from her back, falling to the ground behind her. "'Cause I aint got some pretty power like Wings or something not obvious like Kit. I hear Bobby on the phone at night, you know. Talking to his girl. He wants to leave, but he doesn't think he can." She turned on me, practically screaming now. "But look at me! I CAN'T leave! Iceboy could walk away anytime, get a job selling surplees or something. But what are the choices for me, this or a sideshow?"  
  
*Sarah, honey...*  
  
She pounced on me. "And this is YOUR fault too! I could go if it weren't for you... oh god, if it weren't for you.."  
  
She started sobbing. Sarah, Marrow of the Morlocks, the hardest girl I've ever known just broke down in front of me and started crying her heart out. It was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen.  
  
Times like this, though, it's good to be a telepath. You know exactly what to do, exactly what the girl wants. I bent down and pulled her close, as she turned into my chest.  
  
"Jono.." she said, muffled, "I hate you. I friggin love you and so much that I hate you." She blinked, eyes large and liquid. That was the first time she had said she loved me, typical Sarah fashion. "You know that, right?"  
  
I smoothed down her hair. I thought about the wedding going on outside, about Bobby and his baseline girlfriend who ruffled everyone's feathers, about the maid of honor in a straight jacket. We should get out of this place. But Sarah was right. I wasn't much better off than her with no mouth and no chest. This is where we were wanted, dysfunctional as it maybe.  
  
"Jono?" she whispered. She gazed up at me, half drunk and emotionally drained. She was going to fall asleep right there in my arms, and she had said the three words that I never thought she would say.  
  
*I know.* I sent her a hundred different images, of our first kiss, of how beautiful she looked to me right now, of all the happiness in the world.  
  
*I know, Sarah. I hate you too.* 


	5. Smokers

Title: Smokers  
  
Note: I can't even begin to describe how happy and proud I am of this little story. The response to it was lackluster at first, but is so helpful and amazing now, and I have even achieved my lifetime dream of being archived at Fonts of Wisdom *big smiles*.  
  
Anything but ordinary3- Lol, I'm glad you liked that little line (even though I noticed I had a big grammatical typo in it, oops). And yes, it COULD be Piotr even though Pete's alive.  
  
Harry2- Just wanted to thank you for all your reviews, you've been there since the beginning. And NO ONE trusts Xavier and no one SHOULD either. He's compensating with his lack of hair by being evil and stuff.  
  
*******  
  
they were the only  
  
smokers  
  
so they'd meet  
  
outside every twenty minutes, when we all used to hang out.  
  
soon they became drawn  
  
to each other and anticipated  
  
the next time they'd meet -Hayden.  
  
*********  
  
I was born in a town in England, grew up in the same town and I would have died in that town if I hadn't grown back a steel finger after a farming accident when I was thirteen.  
  
So instead of living out that simple, easy life, I'm here in London, living in one of the most hi-tech buildings in the world, employed by the British government to serve on a team consisting of both mutant and baseline humans.  
  
And I get to spend alternate times cleaning up the puke of my alcoholic team leader.  
  
All the dreams of a small town Brit, huh?  
  
You know, I had just gotten use to nursing Pete Wisdom, spy extraordinaire and perpetual drunk when it abruptly stopped. I know the cliché to say overnight, but in his case it was absolutely true.  
  
He stopped going on missions drunk.  
  
He stopped disappearing for days on end.  
  
He stopped forgetting who we were, calling us different names.  
  
He stopped waking up in his own piss.  
  
He stopped being miserable.  
  
And he started sleeping with Red.  
  
That night, Kali crept into my room just after the two of them disappeared into his room, next to mine. She put a finger to her lips and nodded at the wall that Pete and I shared and we sat on the bed together and listened like two prepubescent girls.  
  
It was loud and hard. We stared into each others' eyes, the simple boy from England and the goddess from India and listened to Pete alternate between growls and near-screams, demands and sobbed mutterings.  
  
It had to be the most horrible thing I had ever heard. Judging from Kali's expression, she didn't feel that different.  
  
The day after, we all avoided the two of them. Red walked around with her eyes downcast, trying to escape from all of our curious looks and Kali's openly hostile glares. Pete strode out of his room later and he did his share of glaring. We all noted that he completed ignored Red.  
  
Up till then, I had never been connected with the rest of the team. I was close to Hugh, sure, but that was because I knew him before this whole mess, before we were both drafted. I didn't have much in common with him, since he was a magician playboy. Pete was probably the person I had the most in common was, but he intimidated me. I didn't like the way he treated everyone, he was far too abrasive for me. The rest of them were all strangers, and there couldn't be anyone stranger than Kali. They told me that she actually was Kali, the Hindu goddess of death who had given birth to life, but all of that meant nothing to me. It was strange enough to blink and see her suddenly with four other arms, a hideous black tongue and a necklace of skulls. And it didn't faze her at all.  
  
But because of that first night between Pete and Red, Kali and I were drawn together. She was the one who had slipped me the burnt remains of the wedding invitation the day after, had whispered to me slips of the story about Pete and some woman, far away in America who had decided to get married and had invited him. And she was the one who came to me every night afterward, lying next to me in bed against the wall I shared with Pete.  
  
Red seemed to return every night after that to Pete's room. Most nights, she would stay for a few seconds and then leave. Other nights, she stayed, but we never heard the same fury and passion in Pete's voice as the first night. In fact, we never heard him at all. There was just Red, her whispered hisses of demands, her forced purrs and her groans.  
  
Part of me felt perverse listening to all of this happen, but Kali never blinked. Instead, she alternated between staring at the wall and at me, listening meretriciously until it was over and then I would gradually drift off to sleep. She was always gone by the morning. We never spoke about our practice during the day. We never comforted Pete or Red about what had happened, what we had heard. For a while, Red shrunk but she sprung back soon enough, maintaining her wild, flirtatious behavior. It offended me, the way she would grin at me or any other man she came across and then sleep with Pete at night. Kali, who knows pretty much everything, says that some people have certain masks that they use to protect herself. But she still glared at Red during the day, as if she had broken some promise that the two women had forged between them.  
  
With Pete, it was superficially easier. With all of his destructive behaviors now in moderation, it was easier to respect him, and he was a stronger leader. But the passion he had dedicated to destroying himself, to the missions he led us on, to sleeping with Red, had all disappeared. His eyes which were once full and angry were now wary, like he was waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. Initially, Kali and Pete had been close, had been friends. Now, they seemed farther apart and when I would ask her about what was different with him, she wouldn't say anything and she would brush me aside.  
  
At first, it was hard to carry our friendship over into the waking hours, but Kali is so full of live, so alive that she intoxicated me and eventually I didn't feel so scared anymore, I didn't feel so lonely.  
  
"Kent," she said to me one day, tapping her finger on my nose in the way that she does when she's trying to be cute, "something bad is coming. What is it?"  
  
She was teasing with me. She knew very well that the only thing I was good for was repairing hacked off pieces of my body, and I was not some far- seeing prophet. She had been playing with Hugh lately, and had been kidding around with me that Hugh was right, that we all had the power to do everything if only we tried hard enough.  
  
I shrugged, deciding to appease her. "It's a storm."  
  
She smiled and shook her head. "You should know the best that storms always come to England. That's not bad." She leaned forward, her dark eyes shining. "Now come on.. what is it?"  
  
I looked out the window, at the clear skies and scattered clouds. "It's an evil mutant villain, intent on turning the world into catfish."  
  
She giggled. Do you know what it sounds like, the giggle of a goddess? "You do have a sense of humor after all," she laughed. She darted towards me suddenly, her movements fluid and temporary. She was serious and she was beautiful.  
  
"Close your eyes, Kent," she murmured. "Close your eyes and tell me what is coming."  
  
I obeyed. My eyes tightly closed, I thought wildly about some answer that could satisfy Kali. She was playing, but I had never crossed her before and I wasn't quite prepared to see what a disappointed goddess was like. I thought about Hugh, sitting up in his room with his ancient priceless books, believing whole heartedly in his pagan mumbo jumbo. I thought about Red, the glares and abuse she put up with from the rest of us during the day just so she could act desperate around Pete at night. I thought about Pete, and how I had preferred him when he was drinking himself to death, because at least then he had something in his eyes. And I thought about Kali, how she was older than all of Hugh's books and was a goddess, a real goddess that people worshipped and that a real goddess that people worshipped had touched my nose and giggled like a child.  
  
"I know," I said. My eyes were still closed. I breathed in deeply, triumphantly. "A smoker, a phoenix is coming across the water." 


	6. Insects

Title: Insects  
  
A/N: I just want to thank (aka get on my knees and grovel in thanks) every person who has taken the time to post a review or send me an e-mail about this story. As I've said before, it means so much to me to know that people enjoy my baby :P Special thanks go out to Luba (it means so much to me to be achieved), Sue and Ellie (thanks again for the e-mails!).  
  
*******  
  
How jaded we became  
  
Every city felt the same  
  
And you came to hate your face  
  
For every place it took you from  
  
And gave you to  
  
Somehow you lost all your friends  
  
You never had many, how could you know what they meant  
  
How you wish this would end  
  
So let it all go and let the flies fight for  
  
Whatever is left of them  
  
Like you care -Insects by Kent  
  
*******  
  
Don't talk to me about Xavier. I don't know what to think about the man.  
  
I first met Xavier just after the voices started becoming cruel and harsh, around the time I turned twelve. My parents had found my notebook in which I had scribbled down everything they had told me, from all the secrets about my family to how I was better than everyone. They read about how the voices had started turning on me. I was stupid. I didn't know when to be quiet. I was messy and loud. Someone was coming to kill me.  
  
My parents had heard about Xavier and the mutant phenomenon. They were frantic to send me to him so that I could become his study, so that I could control the voices. We were not rich so I was sent to him by myself with a one way ticket.  
  
When it was discovered that I was not a mutant, I had to wait with Xavier in the States for several months before my family could afford to buy a ticket for me to return home.  
  
Meeting him had terrified me. He wasn't just another voice in my head. He was louder than the rest and I was scared that he would want to hurt me or would want me to hurt someone else like the others did. It took me days before I was comfortable enough to be in the same room as him. By that time, he had probed my mind carefully from a distance and had found no X- gene. I was no telepath like my parents had hoped and thought.  
  
I was just a broken, lost little schizophrenic girl.  
  
Xavier didn't tell me that. Not at first. Instead, he took me into his study, his helmet-like Cerebro attached to his head and he announced he was going to heal me. I lost consciousness, but I was aware of him in my head, fixing synapses and adjusting hormones. Hours later, I went back to my assigned room. That was just under twenty years ago. I haven't heard any voices since.  
  
I became a psychologist because I knew that not everyone could have a telepath peek around in their head and reconnect their brain. It was never even really about 'fixing' anyone either. That was one of the things I aimed to do, but more than anything, I longed to understand.  
  
Sometimes, I feel cheated. Sometimes I wish I had been able to deal with the voices on my own, to know it was my own triumph. Sometimes I wonder if maybe the voices would have told me beautiful things again one day.  
  
So I worked for years unraveling the minds of criminals when I could never even unravel my own. Therapy is wasted on me; there's nothing to say. Physically, genetically, I have been fixed. But emotionally, the disease is still there and I am empty.  
  
The killers I have come to understand have provided me a service that I can never repay them for. They have helped me define my life. I was a vital link in helping to catch criminals who were evil, therefore I was good.  
  
I didn't feel good.  
  
I felt like a traitor. I felt like some of these people, the ones with real mental problems, looked at me and saw one of their own who had deserted them. I felt that their voices were filling them in on my forsaken brain, that their voices were whispering urgently, lonely to me, only to end up with unending silence.  
  
I was plagued with that survivor guilt for the majority of my career as a forensic physiologist. I felt that with leaving forensics behind and choosing to join the British MI-X, I would leave the guilt behind as well. And yet here I am, waiting for X-Rays to develop, terrified that they will prove that what I am beginning to fear is true.  
  
I have been unsure of my position since I got here. Was I supposed to be a counselor for the others, or aid them in tracking down criminals? So far, I have done more forensics than any counseling, and it isn't as painful as my past work. These criminals are mutants, and part of me envies them for that, so the guilt is less.  
  
But things started to go bad a few weeks ago.  
  
Kali had tumbled into my office, gripping a ripped envelope. The woman was out of breath, and frantically tried to communicate with me despite this. It's a fascinating sight to see, a hurried goddess gasping at you, waving four arms around animatedly. Finally, she had dumped the envelope onto my desk and stood there, breathing hard.  
  
I picked it up delicately, turning it over. It was addressed to Wisdom and I was about to question her why she had opened his mail when I saw the return address.  
  
Salem Place, New York.  
  
The Xavier Institute.  
  
My blood froze. After I left Xavier when I was twelve, we had not communicated again, though supposedly he had contacted my parents several times to see how I was. And Xavier's response to MI-X had been a chilly silence.  
  
I opened the card inside quickly and stopped. This was the last thing I was expecting. Inside laid a picture of a young man and woman- quick, who were they?- above an invitation to their wedding.  
  
Katherine Pryde and Piotr Rasputin. Shadowcat and Colossus, I thought, remembering the files that had been mandatory reading.  
  
Underneath the invitation was a message hand written in thick black pen.  
  
Pete, No hard feelings, eh? Piotr  
  
I looked up at Kali with raised eyebrows. "So?"  
  
"So?" she stammered. "So? So that girl there is the reason Pete has been a mess for the past weeks."  
  
"I thought Wisdom was always like that."  
  
"Kitty and Pete dated for a while, back when they were with Excalibur." Excalibur- right, the European group of mutants. "She's head of the X-Men now. They were here weeks ago and Kitty and Pete had a reunion of sorts. He's been out of his head because he keeps trying to work up the nerve to contact her, to be with her."  
  
I looked down at the invitation in my hand, feeling the plastic texture of the card. "This will not go over well, then."  
  
She snorted, two of her arms disappearing. "No shit."  
  
"Why have you come to me with this?" I looked away. "It is rather obvious that I am not the most liked here, and Wisdom and I are not particularly close."  
  
Kali slid into the seat facing me, her face serious. "No, but you're the physiologist here. You know what's best for everyone's mental health and all." She shook her head. "And to be honest, I trust you the most."  
  
I was surprised. "Me? Why?"  
  
She shrugged. "Red can be manipulative without meaning to. Hugh is a horrible gossip. Kent can be too simple. And Will has this habit of letting things slip."  
  
I nodded. "I'm guessing you want to keep this," I waved the invitation, "away from Pete."  
  
She nodded eagerly and then paused, thinking as she fell back into the chair with a scowl across her face. "Rasputin is a complete bastard. He wrote that just because he thinks he's won." She growled deep in her throat.  
  
"You do know that Pete will eventually find out, yes?"  
  
She sighed. "I guess. But just not like this."  
  
I nodded slowly. "I agree. We should give him time. He doesn't seem to be in the best place right now."  
  
Kali smiled and moved to leave. Just before leaving, she turned to me. "Thank you, Cloe."  
  
In retrospect, I should have locked my office door. But I was hungry and a bit giddy from my exchange with Kali. And of course, I never would have guessed that Red would have snuck into my office, searched and found the wedding invitation to take it out and give it to Pete.  
  
But when I came back later, the atmosphere had obviously changed, had become pregnant and tense. Will, Kent and Hugh had gathered themselves in the main room, all of them drinking, Kent a coffee and the other two various different types of alcohol. Kali was pacing around, a slim cigarette held between her elegant fingers, flicking off the ashes every few seconds. The sound of the door closing behind me was jarring in the quiet room. Kali's head flew up, and I watched her black hair flying around her face.  
  
"Oh thank Shiva you're back," Kali said, rushing over to me and hooking her arm in mine. She began to drag me away from the main room, away from the watching boys to a secluded corner. "Red got the invitation. She gave it to Pete."  
  
"Red did what?" I was surprised that she had done so, but I was even more surprised that this was the reason for the grim faces.  
  
Kali sighed and shook her head. "Red made sure that Pete saw the wedding invitation about forty-five minutes ago. Half an hour ago, we heard this," she shuddered, "howl. From Pete's room." She clung to herself. Her face was close to mine. "It was heart-wrenching."  
  
"Has anyone gone in there? Has anyone tried to talk to him?" I moved away from her, heading towards Pete's room.  
  
"We didn't think it was the best idea," she said urgently. "We were waiting for you, Cloe."  
  
I marched to Pete's room, tilting my head towards the door and listening. Nothing. I knocked slightly. "Peter? It's Dr. Olivia. Cloe. I am going to come in. Okay?" Again, nothing. So I swung the door open.  
  
Red was squatting in the corner, her legs pulled tightly against her chest. Strands of hair were hanging free from what used to be a tight bun and her eyes were small in a squint. There were vague traces something, either a smile or a grimace, on her face. Her hands were burnt.  
  
Pete was on the other side of the room, slumped on the ground, leaning against the foot of his bed. His shirt and his tie were loose and disshelved. In one outstretched hand he held the still smoldering remains of a paper, probably the wedding invitation.  
  
"Jesus Christ, Pete." I ran across the room, grabbed an old jacket of Pete's lying on the floor and I threw it over the fire in his hands. The smell of him was noxious and over-powering and, as I moved closer, I realized that he was covered in alcohol. The jacket having dosed the fire, I tossed it aside and looked into Pete's flat eyes.  
  
"Red," I growled, never once taking my eyes off of Pete, "get the hell out of here." I heard her clamor to her feet and stumble out. The door closed slowly.  
  
As soon as she was gone, I reached back and slapped him.  
  
Pete stared back at me, his eye balls lolling around drunkenly. My eyes bore into his, demanding his attention. I doubt he saw me that night. But I was there, for what seemed like hours, staring at him and talking to him, willing him to use me as an anchor back to reality. Instead, after leaving him later, he used Red and her body as an anchor.  
  
Kali was livid. Red had committed a cardinal sin in her eyes. I understood her point. Red, being shrewd, had known that the invitation would have destroyed Pete, leaving him open to her. But I understood Red too, on a level. She wanted Pete, and she wanted him to want her. She did what she thought was necessary. It doesn't make it right, but it makes it understandable.  
  
But Kali, who had been close to Red initially, now vehemently resented the younger girl. Kali had been Red's only link with the rest of the group and now without her, she had begun to fade away, just as Pete had faded. He had since returned again, but he was not the same man. Defense mechanism. I understood.  
  
And then, weeks later, right after the wedding, Rachel had come. Kali had skirted around me for a while, saying happily that Kent had foreseen it. But eventually, she lost interest with the red haired girl who stayed to her room. Pete avoided her like the plague. She was a living reminder of that night months ago.  
  
I tried all sorts of approaches with Rachel. None worked. She was uncommunicative, and around her I felt as if there was a whirlpool in my brain, sucking my thoughts and words down as well. After days of trying to reach her, I began to wonder if she had some sort of head trauma. Will and I set up a CT scan for her, Will only grimacing slightly at the immense cost of it.  
  
Her scans had come back irregular. In occasional areas and layers in her brain were dark cloudy blocks that cut off different nerve endings and synapses. Will shook his head and scratched his scalp in the way he did when he was confused.  
  
"I don't know, Cloe," he said. "My specialty has never been the brain, but I remember enough from medical school to know that what we are seeing is nothing that's ever been documented before."  
  
I sighed, tapping my pen against the desk. "Is it some sort of bruised tissue? Could it have been caused by an injury?"  
  
He shook his head and opened a book that lay before him. "Look, no head wounds of any kind appear like this. And if it was in fact caused by some trauma, some external stimulus, the blocks would appear on all layers or at least the layers closest to the skull, the tissues that would have been bruised first. But they're just random here."  
  
I squinted, moving closer to the X-rays. "What sections of the brain are these? Aren't these the ones that control memories? And these here, aren't they the ones that control emotions?"  
  
He nodded. "It appears like it. You would think that would explain her current condition, this damage, but its not concentrated enough to be responsible for her catatonic state." He shook his head again and sighed heavily, deeply. "In fact, I'm not even sure if these blocks are actual damage. They're too neat, too well contained." He looked at me and shrugged. "It seems almost purposefully created. Isn't she from the future? Perhaps this is a result of a futuristic disease, or a scientific advancement."  
  
Now it was my turn to shake my head. "Some of these are fresh. See these here?" I pointed to a scan. "They're dimmer, not as controlled and neat. The brain has been trying to eradicate them, to remove them. These here are much stronger. New."  
  
And then it came to me. It was slowly and discreetly at first, but eventually loud and unsettling enough to make me feel physically ill.  
  
"Will? Could you do a CT scan on me?"  
  
I was nervously pacing as Will prepares the scan. He glanced at me intermediately, confused and a bit annoyed, hesitant to spend thousands of dollars because of some hunch I can't explain. I hoped to God that it is just a waste. I prayed with all my heart.  
  
And then he was walking across the room, maybe saying something, but I couldn't hear and he placed the X-Rays on the board so that they show. Next to them were Rachel's, no longer lonely. No longer lonely, never will be again, because there I was, right next to her and I felt like being sick. My brain lied next to hers, all sliced up and as pale as gossamer and Will didn't have to say anything because I could already see, I already knew.  
  
In my brain, in slightly different places, there were also the gray blocks.  
  
What did I expect? I knew Xavier had been inside my head and had cured me; I shouldn't be surprised to see these remnants. But I had thought that he had simply placed together nerve endings that had been severed during a difficult delivery, healed bruised tissue. Instead, he had cut my nerve endings and bruised my tissue. I wasn't meant to be sane. I was born with this disease and would have had it my whole life if he hadn't done that, if he hadn't jumped into my head and changed my brain waves around to fit what he thought it should be. He had seen what God had wrought and found it wrong. And he had changed me.  
  
How many things had he cut off from me? How many memories or thoughts or opinions had been siphoned off, had been suppressed? I suddenly missed the voices vehemently and I felt, more than ever, a sham, a psychologist who was born to be on the other side but a bald handicapped man had gone into my head and messed things around.  
  
And then there was Rachel. I had pored over her file; she was not born with the same mental defects as me. And I realized, as I stared more and more at the two brain scans, that she was now diseased where I had originally been. Where my synapses had been connected, hers had been severed. Someone was *trying* to make her schizophrenic, or at least appear that way to a psychologist like me.  
  
I have never been a paranoid person, even when I was still under the control of the schizophrenia. There were no flights of extreme delusion where I felt that I was a key figure in some sort of mass conspiracy. But right now, God help me, I couldn't help but feel that way. The evidence was there before me, jarring and unsettling, all roads seemingly leading to the conclusion that Xavier had entered this girl's brain and had tried to destroy her, just as he had done the opposite with me.  
  
Finally, Will's voice broke through my reverie. "Cloe, what is this?"  
  
My eyes never left the scans. "I started hearing voices when I was a little girl. My parents thought I was telepathic so they sent me to Xavier for help. He realized I wasn't a mutant; instead, it was schizophrenia. Those blocks in my brain were put there by him to 'heal' me."  
  
"So let me guess," he said, frowning. "You're thinking that Xavier created this damage in her."  
  
I sighed deeply and crossed my arms. "I don't know. Rachel could have suffered from some sort of mental disease and these blocks were the result of the cure, like mine. After all, the girl was sent back and forth in time. And if it wasn't to combat some disease, perhaps she requested it. They could be blocking some horrible memories she's had from her past.."  
  
Will interpreted me, scowling and pointing at the scans. "Yes, but, like you said, these blocks are all new. They're all placed upon new memories. And you see these blocks here? They're located in the personality section of the brain. How do you explain that away?"  
  
"I'm not trying to explain anything away, Will, I'm just-"  
  
"Scared about what this might mean? Of all people, *Dr.* Olivia, I thought you would be the last to shrink away from something like this."  
  
I sighed, looking down at the ground. "I'm not shrinking away. I just don't want to jump to conclusions." Yeah, like the conclusion that Xavier had purposefully destroyed this girl's mind, that he had done things in my mind that he shouldn't have.  
  
Will said nothing. He walked over to Rachel's side, looking down at the still unconscious girl. Her face was twisted in a grimace now, the muscles along the side of her face twitched as he leaned over her, moping off the sweat on her brow. "Red is read only, so she won't be able to fix this, but maybe she can look into it more. She and I will be able to help her, hopefully, bring her back to consciousness, though I doubt that she will ever be able to confront the nature of these blocks."  
  
"Will, I-"  
  
He turned on me, glaring. "Don't give me any excuses. You know as much as I do, if not more, that this is Xavier's fault. You're the shrink here, Cloe; you have a responsibility to help her."  
  
I sat down heavily, with my head buried deep in my hands. I knew he was right. But how could I help her? How could I help her when I was suffering from the same thing, when I had no way of knowing what Xavier may have tampered with? I thought of Rachel's files, of the pictures of her. She was so young, so beautiful, so full of life. It was hard to reconcile those images and the image of the girl laid out before me, pale as death and shaking. And yet, it was also very familiar.  
  
We were stuck, her and I. And with only death to get us out.  
  
*****  
  
Yeah, maybe not the best ending. I actually ripped off one of my own poems for that last line. Bizarre, eh? Ah well, I hope this helped to get some insight into Cloe, whose been the most elusive so far. The next chapter's going to be set a few years down the line and should be from Rachel's POV. I'm gonna avoid doing Kitty or Pete, or even Piotr's POV like the plague. I love writing from the perspective of secondary characteristics regarding main characteristics, so yeah. Let me know which secondary character (the other X-Men and the other members of MI-X), you'd most like to know about. 


	7. Help You if You're a Phoenix

Title: Help You if You're a Phoenix  
  
A/N: This one has been a loooong time coming, my friends, and I actually had to cut it in half because it ended up being longer than I thought it would be. I've spent enormous amounts of time lately wasted on writing final papers, so that's my excuse for the fanfic delay. I'll probably get around to writing the next bit of my Excalibur Evo soon, but the final push aint over yet. I just wanna thank everyone out there who offered encouragement, Luba, Sue, Harry, Ellie and everyone else who left a review. It means a lot guys!  
  
******  
  
and god help you if you are a phoenix  
  
and you dare to rise up from the ash  
  
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy  
  
while you are just flying past-Ani Difranco  
  
*********  
  
Phoenixes came and went, goddesses refused to forgive, babies were born and life went on, determined and blind.  
  
In the long run, four years seemed as if nothing.  
  
In that time, the child was born, a beautiful girl with dark eyes and hair. Her father had, with a nostalgic ping, suggested the name Illyana but the mother was firm.  
  
"Lilith," she said, holding her baby. "Her name is Lilith."  
  
"Why Lilith?" Piotr had asked quietly, marveling at the delicate features of his baby girl.  
  
Kitty looked up into his eyes, her own eyes large and deep. "In Jewish legend, Lilith was created before Eve. She demanded to be equal to Adam and was therefore sent out into the desert, to be a demon of the sand." She looked back down again, smoothing down the small wisps of hair. "Lilith. The first woman."  
  
Piotr nodded and as Kitty turned into his chest with Lilith he thought his heart would burst from happiness.  
  
In that time, the team had grown into an internationally known group. MI-X was held up as what other crime fighting groups should aspire to, with its mix of mutant and human and its openness with the public. They didn't run after, instead choosing to stay around and help the authorities. Some became famous, like Hugh Brady. The descendant of Druids became a world renowned magician-turned- playboy.  
  
Pete Wisdom quietly struggled onward.  
  
In that time, the world was starting to change. The New Reich's human concentration camps were destroyed and they went underground. The Sentinel project fell under United Nations jurisdiction. Artificial intelligence was on cusp of being perfected.  
  
And Rachel had returned from England with no knowledge of what had brought her mental breakdown on to babysit for Kitty and Piotr's daughter.  
  
"Lilly!!! Get back here!" Rachel darted around the house, breathlessly following the trail of giggles. She turned the corner and saw the last of Lilly's long black hair escaping up the steps. Smiling to herself, Rachel flew out the closest window and quickly through an opened window in Lilly's room. She perched herself on top of Lilly's bunk bed and waited.  
  
The four year old darted into the room, closing the door behind her heavily and leaning against it, her little lungs gasping for air. As her breathing slowed, she looked up at her room and shrieked.  
  
"No fair using powers!!!" she exclaimed, setting her lips into a pout at her 'Aunt Rachie'.  
  
Rachel smiled and jumped down from the bed. "Sorry, kiddo, but you're too much of a menace not to use 'em. So now that you're trapped, what do you say about taking that nap?"  
  
"No nap!!!" Lilly exclaimed violently, jumping up and down. "Not tired! See?"  
  
"I do see," Rachel responded, shaking her head in amusement. "Does that have to do with all those chocolates you've been sneaking?"  
  
Lilly instantly stilled and her hands flew behind her back. "What chalkylates?" She blinked her eyes, trying her best innocent face.  
  
"Nice try, Lil. But here's a tip for the future- don't try lying to a telepath, okay?"  
  
Lilly's face instantly fell into a scowl. "I want to use powers too!"  
  
Rachel smiled and affectionately messed up Lilly's hair. "You'll have powers too one day when you're older."  
  
"No!" Lilly shook her head. "I have powers now! See?"  
  
And before Rachel could respond, Lilly had squeezed her eyes shut and had turned away from the older girl. Eye still closed tight, Lilly ran full force towards her bedroom door.  
  
"Lilly!" Rachel shouted frantically. She reached out to stop the collision, but Lilly simply passed through the door and disappeared. Rachel had only one moment to stand there in disbelief before the door set ablaze.  
  
She fell back, covering her face from the sudden explosion of flames. Looking around the room frantically, she saw a glass of water on Lilly's desk and flung it at the door, using her telepathy to put it out. Worried beyond measure, she rushed to the door and flung it open, terrified at the thought of finding a crying burnt child or worse.  
  
Instead Lilly was standing there, her left ankle turned in and her hands behind her back. Her gray eyes were staring up at Rachel with the most heart-wrenching expression. Lilly's lips pulled down into a pout.  
  
"Opps?" she said.  
  
**********  
  
It had gone worse than she had feared.  
  
Piotr had returned home about twenty minutes after Lilly's small demonstration which gave Rachel more than enough time to be overwhelmed with unwanted thoughts and broken conclusions. As she told him about what had happened that day, she couldn't keep still. Her hands shook and he was just about to give her some of her medication to calm her down when he came to the same conclusion that had made her so jumpy.  
  
He slowly put the pills down on the counter, refusing to face her. Lilly was in the living room, asleep on the couch, oblivious to the near mental breakdown of her 'aunt' and the tormented heart of her 'father'. His pace rhythmic, he walked up the stairs and came down again shortly, carrying a piece of luggage.  
  
"Piotr? Where are you going?"  
  
He shrugged, picking up the large gray suitcase. "I do not know. Perhaps home to Russia. Maybe find my own place in the city."  
  
She cocked her head, fidgeting nervously. "You're just leaving?"  
  
"Why not? I have no place here."  
  
"Of course you have a place here!" she exploded. "This is your family. So what if your daughter suddenly started being able to make fire? We're all just thinking worse case scenario. Maybe one day she will display your mutation, or maybe she doesn't have to at all. You can't base everything on what just happened; it doesn't have to mean anything-"  
  
He whirled angrily at her. "But it does mean everything! It means she is not mine!" He paused, calming himself down. "Or at the very least, it means something." He shook his head ruefully, laughing to himself. "Do you know that if we had only looked at the numbers, I would have realized it was impossible for the child to be mine? I had not been with Katya at the right time." His face fell. "If only we had looked..."  
  
"Piotr," she started softly, "she may not genetically be your daughter. But you're her father, in every way that counts."  
  
"You are a telepath, Rachel. You see into the hearts and minds of men. You can even see the genetics of a person if you try hard, da? You might have protested at first, but now you are accepting it fully"  
  
The fidgeting almost got out of control as Rachel shuddered, clenching her teeth. "I don't know. It.. it has something to do with... before." Before. That meant before her mental breakdown and time in Europe. Everything was divided that way. "It was a feeling I had. That I lost. That I don't even know is real." She suddenly turned desperate, scared. "Oh God Piotr, what if it didn't really even happen? What if this is just my sickness coming back?!"  
  
He calmly shook his head. "I saw the burn on Lilly's door; I know you did not imagine it." He laughed again, self-mockingly. "We sound like we've accepted this so fully. But it does not seem real to me."  
  
"Wait for Kitty to come home. She's your wife. You should at least talk before just getting up and disappearing." She paused and walked closer to him, extending a hand onto his shoulder. "I know what you're afraid of. You're afraid she'll run off to Pete Wisdom and you'll never see her or Lilly again."  
  
"Wisdom?" He turned to look at her. "How could it be Wisdom?"  
  
He didn't know. Her voice caught in her throat and she looked at his large sad eyes. "When we all went to England to help Pete, they..."  
  
"They were together," he said shortly. He shook his head. "I suppose I should have always had known. Katya has never looked at me the way she looked at Wisdom."  
  
"She loves you, you know," she said quickly, her breath rushed. "She loves you and she loves Lilly and Lilly loves you. Nothing has to change." She bit her lip, unbelieving of what she was going to say next. "You don't have to tell her about this."  
  
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I never thought you would say something like that, Rachel."  
  
She shifted awkwardly, looking down at her feet. "I just want Kitty to be happy. And..well, this all reminds me of my own family. You know, the endless debate about Scott or Logan." She looked up at him again eagerly. "It's horrible being torn like that without ever really knowing. I mean, after all, Xavier's results early-on said the baby was yours. This back- and-forth could go on forever without anyone knowing for sure."  
  
"I know for sure," he said quietly. "But you are right. I do not want to just abandon my wife and child." His eyes brightened. "Maybe my Katya will choose me and renounce Wisdom forever." He lowered his head as he continued, muted once again. "Or at the very least, we will not have to live a lie. I could not do that."  
  
Slowly, the gray suitcase was lowered to the ground. Rachel smiled as she picked it up and hugged it close to her chest. She heard Lilly's small snores from the next room. Everything was going to see alright.  
  
"I must see the Professor," Piotr said abruptly. "I must discuss this all with him."  
  
"Piotr, it was his technology that said that Lilly was yours. He's not going to have any different answers for you now than he did then."  
  
"Perhaps his machine malfunctioned. We could try again. Maybe Charles' was just distracted that day-"  
  
"Or maybe he lied." Her tone was ice, her voice, steel.  
  
He stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at her slowly, his brow wrinkled, and she looked back up at him, her eyes wavering with what looked like tears.  
  
"Lied?" Piotr shook his head. "Why would the professor do that?"  
  
"I don't know, Piotr. But he is the most powerful telepath in the world. He would have easily been able to determine whose child it was." She moved closer to him, her voice becoming a desperate plea. "But that doesn't matter anymore, Piotr. Just sit down, wait for Kitty to come home. We can deal with this all tomorrow."  
  
He shook his head, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. He marched into the foyer of the house with a nervous Rachel trailing behind him.  
  
"No," he said firmly. "We deal with this now. I am going over there to talk to the Professor and Hank." He turned back, looking imploring at Rachel. "You will stay with Lilly until Katya comes home, da?"  
  
She nodded solemnly. He smiled slightly in reply and she closed her eyes. She could hear the door open, the door close, his footsteps across the driveway, the car start up and drive away. He was gone.  
  
She opened her eyes again, looking around the house. She could hear Lilly stirring slightly as the young girl began to wake up. She could hear the clock ticking senselessly on the wall. Everything was normal, she told herself. Piotr will talk to Charles, Charles will apologize, Kitty and Piotr will talk and will raise Lilly together, despite some random genetics. Everything was going to be perfectly okay. She looked down and noticed that her hands were shaking uncontrollably.  
  
"Auntie Rachie?"  
  
Rachel spun around wildly, shocked by the young voice. Lilly stood at the doorway, her small face peering out cautiously. "Did I hear my daddy?"  
  
Rachel was afraid she was going to begin hyperventilating. She walked over to Lilly, scooped the girl up and began to pace up and down the living room. "Yes, honey. He just came to see how you were. He had to take care of some things."  
  
Lilly frowned, grimacing as Rachel's grip on her became continuously tighter. "You shoulda waked me. I want to see daddy."  
  
Rachel paused by the large bay window, holding Lilly close to her just as she had before held Piotr's suitcase. Lilly squirmed, but couldn't break free of her hold.  
  
"It's okay," Rachel whispered. "You'll see your daddy again soon."  
  
Rachel broke her promise to Piotr. When Kitty came home, she did not leave. She stayed, pacing up and down the living room, seemingly unaware of the scared Lilly and worried Kitty. After a few minutes, Kitty had begun dialing the number for the headquarters of MI-X in order to get Dr. Oliva on the phone. But then she remembered the time and she remembered their leader and she replaced the headset in the cradle.  
  
"Rachel, sit down," Kitty said, holding her daughter close. "You're scaring us."  
  
Rachel sat, but her legs kept twitching as if they continued pacing without the rest of her body. "I'm sorry, guys. Sorry. I just can't calm down. Sorry."  
  
"What's wrong?" Kitty implored. Lilly sniffled against her chest and she ran her hands through her daughter's silky black hair.  
  
"Something is really bad," Rachel started. Her teeth were chattering. "Today-"  
  
All of a sudden, Lilly interpreted her with a loud, piercing howl as she threw her head back away from her mother. Her eyes were clenched shut and her face red from crying.  
  
"Baby, what's wrong?!" Kitty's hands flew around her daughter in a panic, looking for some sort of object that may have hurt her, some cut or wound that she had not noticed.  
  
Lilly's howl tapered off and she flung herself forward, her small arms circling around her mother's neck and holding on tight. "Don't hate me mommy!!!"  
  
"Mommy could never hate you, honey." Kitty rubbed her daughter's back comfortingly, looking imploring at Rachel who had been just as surprised by Lilly's outburst but had now begun pacing again. "Why would you think that mommy ever could?"  
  
Lilly pulled away slowly, her small face twisted with grief. "I made Auntie Rachie mad. I used my 'owers."  
  
"Your 'owers'?" Kitty looked over at Rachel. She was shaking her head violently and Kitty desperately wished Piotr was home so that she could have some help with the two.  
  
"Yeh, my 'owers. Like you and daddy have."  
  
"Oh, you mean powers," Kitty said calming and then quickly did a double take. "Powers? You have powers?! But you're too young to have powers..."  
  
"But I have 'em!" Lilly protested blue eyes wide. "And I used 'em today and made Auntie Rachie mad."  
  
"No," Rachel said. Her voice sounded dead and flat. "Her powers surprised me too. So when Piotr came home, I asked him about it and he didn't know either, so I told him all about it and now he's gone and I shouldn't have said a thing.."  
  
"Wait a second." At this point, Kitty was beyond confused. "What's wrong with telling Piotr about this?"  
  
"Because of what her powers are. She can phase, but that's not it," Rachel said. She stopped pacing, looking Kitty dead in the face. "Lilly can create fire."  
  
In her mother's arms, Lilly began to sniffle loudly again, pushing herself deeper into Kitty's embrace. Rachel watched Kitty's eyes. At first, nothing. And then a deep confusion, a scurrying search to rack her brain, figure out what this meant. And then it dawned on her. Rachel watched as the realization spread from her wide eyes to her quivering lips and then through the rest of her body.  
  
"Did Piotr think..?" Kitty faltered as her voice cracked.  
  
"Yes." Rachel nodded her head out towards the driveway. "He went to go see Xavier."  
  
"Jesus," Kitty silently whispered, holding her still crying daughter close, mindlessly smoothing down her hair and rocking her. "Jesus." Her eyes flew up to Rachel's. "But it doesn't have to mean that. Mutation is random. Look at Piotr's own family. He has his strength and his organic steel, but Illyana was a teleporter which isn't even remotely related, and- "  
  
Rachel shook her head. "But they were siblings, children of parents who only carried the X-gene, it wasn't active. You and Piotr both have active X-genes with hereditary codes that make them impossible to be denied."  
  
Kitty's mind was racing, looking for every other alternative. "But couldn't it be possible that my parents were both carriers for this new mutation? It doesn't have to mean that Piotr isn't-". She stopped abruptly, looking down at the child in her arms.  
  
"No, it doesn't have to mean that. But Piotr thinks it does. He went to go talk to Charles."  
  
Rachel was instantly off again, pacing up and down the room as small objects lying around started hovering in the air and flying around her head. Clutching her daughter close, Kitty instinctively phased them both.  
  
"Rachel, could you please stop? I know you're worried, but things could be worse." Kitty glared at Rachel. "Besides I think this affects me a lot more than it does you."  
  
Rachel abruptly stopped. Her cold glare terrified Kitty. "You're such a bitch."  
  
"What?! Rachel, I think-" Suddenly Kitty found that she could not speak, her mouth being telepathically squeezed shut.  
  
A terrified and sniffling Lilly was yanked telepathically out of her mother's hands, floating away up the stairs before being placed firmly in her own bed. Kitty watched numbly as her daughter floated away, her small face scrunched up in heart-breaking sobs.  
  
"No. Don't talk. Listen." The illusion of fire began to flare up behind Rachel. "You are an attention seeking, desperate and pathetic slut. You have Piotr, a man who loves you and wants to be with you, and then you go and spread your legs for this perverted old man. If I didn't know you better I would think you were using him for sex, but you're just such a pushover, such a spineless girl that he probably gave you one compliment and you flung yourself on top of him. And now you have a baby, a bastard, and you're lying around being all self-pitying when this whole mess if your fault. Your husband has just run off to try to be convinced that what he knows is right is really wrong, and you don't even care that he's not around. You know I had to talk him out of walking out on you? Now I'm beginning to think that maybe you would have appreciate it if he left, so you could call up Wisdom and be the easy little pathetic tramp you are." Rachel began to pace again. A few nearby family pictures began to shake as they slowly rose into the air.  
  
"Is Wisdom even the father? Or has there been more since, more before and more after? How many nameless men have you fooled around with? How many times have you spread your legs just to feel pretty and wanted? For God's sake, Xavier made you the leader! He thought you were the most mature, the most competent! And look at you!" The floating objects began to fly around the room as Rachel's eyes glowed red.  
  
"Why did you do it, Kitty? Why didn't you listen to me and not come back from England? I told Pete to keep you there and you ran away from him again. And why did you let Xavier make you the leader, trap you here, you married the wrong person, I was trying to tell you, no one was listening and then there was just this big darkness that was swallowing me and I wanted to help, I wanted to save you, to tell you that you weren't marrying the father like you thought but then that blackness, and the jacket and the airplane and then there was nothing and oh god..."  
  
Rachel slowly began to sway. Kitty found that she could again move and darted towards her friend as the photo frames fell to the ground just seconds before Rachel.  
  
Kitty swooped to her friend's side, cradling her limp body numbly. Rachel's usually vivid eyes were blank and rolled back in her head, her mouth foaming as her head twitched from side to side.  
  
"Shit," she muttered, looking desperately around. On the counter were Rachel's pills, but she knew if she tried to get Rachel to take them, she would choke. Propping a pillow behind Rachel's head, Kitty flew to the phone, and desperately dialed the number she had been scared of before.  
  
On the other side of the Atlantic, just moments before midnight, Pete Wisdom angrily picked up the urgently ringing phone.  
  
"MI-X. Wot the fuck do you want?" he growled, glaring at the half-empty glass of whiskey that this call had taken him from.  
  
"Get me Dr. Olivia. Now. It's an emergency!" the voice on the line cried.  
  
"I'll have to transfer you. Wait-Pryde, is that you?"  
  
"On second thought, we don't have time. You still have that jet, right? Get Olivia and get the jet and get over here as soon as you can!"  
  
"Calm down, girl. What's the big deal?"  
  
"It's Rachel. She's... I don't know. She's had another attack. Just get over here!"  
  
And they did, faster than even Pete thought was possible. Red was a merciless flyer, taking every possible risk to get there just a big faster. Cloe spent the time pacing, grumbling that Pete should have gotten more information from Kitty over the phone. Pete was just about to explode at her when Red announced that they had arrived.  
  
"Someone wake up Hugh," Pete grumbled, glaring at the sleeping Irishman. "If we have to suffer, then so does the playboy." Pointing at the hem of Hugh's pants, Pete sent a heat knife over and chuckled to himself as the flame instantly woke up Hugh who screamed like a little girl before putting it out.  
  
"Will you boys stop for once?!" Cloe was panicked as was, and the guys' antics were not helping any. "Red, get the damn runway down already."  
  
"Jeez, someone's being all menopausal," Red sneered, flicking a few switches on the dashboard. A mechanical hum sounded as the runway was lowered.  
  
They walked out, Cloe dashing ahead of the others. Standing at the bottom waiting was an older, yet still familiar Kitty. Nestled in her arms tightly was Lilith sucking nervously on her thumb. Deep blue eyes turned out to stare at the newcomers tiredly.  
  
"Where is she?" Cloe asked frantically. With one small motion of her head, Kitty indicated the jeep that was parked behind them and Cloe was off again, pulling the door open and sliding into the backseat. Pete could see through the tinted windows as Cloe cradled Rachel's head in her lap, pulling back the girl's eyelids to check her pupils and such. He turned back to the woman standing before him and something inside him felt numb.  
  
"Great mothering skills, Pryde," he sneered. He heard Red stalking up behind him and he could practically feel the heat from the daggers that she was glaring at Kitty. "You usually keep the kid out at four in the mornin'?"  
  
She glared at Pete, turning her body and Lilly away from him. He saw her eyes were haunted and it looked like she had probably been crying recently. "I wasn't about to leave her alone in an empty house. My husband isn't home yet." The word 'husband' was deliberately spat out.  
  
Hugh ambled over to Kitty, giving her his best smile regardless of his exhausted condition. "Nice to meet ya... Is it Mrs. Rasputin," he lilted. "I'm Hugh Brady and that gel hidin' behind Pete is Red Bixby."  
  
"I'm not hiding," Red protested, and she slowly sauntered past Kitty, looking her up and down before joining Cloe in the jeep.  
  
"Please Mr. Brady, call me Kat."  
  
Hugh grinned, his eyes twinkling. "Only if you call me Hugh."  
  
Pete watched the exchange and could feel his irritation growing by the second. Hugh was laying on his charm. He had seen it happen before and he had seen Hugh always getting exactly what he wanted.  
  
"Enough bloody pleasantries. Let's get on with this. Your place good?" Pete snapped.  
  
Kitty made a small shrugging motion and her body seemed to quiver for a second. She quickly covered it up by jumping slightly up and down in an apparent attempt to keep herself warm in the morning air. Both she and Pete paused while the rest piled into the Jeep.  
  
"It's.. uh," Kitty was completely lost for words. Lilly shifted in her arms and Kitty instinctively rubbed her daughter's back. "It's nice to see you again, Pete."  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm sure." And then he stalked off into the car, his entire body stiff with the intense hatred, intense passion, intense envy he felt when he saw her.  
  
Later, back at Kitty's house, Lilly was finally sleeping fitfully in her own bed as the others occupied the living room, nursing large cups of coffee. Cloe had set off a smaller room for Rachel and had not allowed anyone to go in as of yet.  
  
Pete walked around, looking at the wood floors, the large windows and he knew that the money for all of this didn't come from some day job. Leaning, he scooped up a photograph frame that lay face down on the floor. Turning it over, he saw a long crack of glass running straight along Piotr's face as he smiled happily with his wife and baby girl. Red, who was watching Pete intently, instantly spoke.  
  
"Where exactly is your husband, Mrs. Rasputin?" she growled.  
  
"Kat, please. And Piotr is... well, I'm not exactly sure where. He left before I got home. Rachel said that he went to see Xavier about an hour or so before I got home." Kitty was staring intensely at the floor as if she was memorizing the pattern of the wood.  
  
"Aren't you worried about him?" Hugh piped up innocently, his eyes wide.  
  
Another half shrug from Kitty.  
  
"Is it often in your husband's nature to take off and stay out all night?" Red positively purred out her question.  
  
Kitty's head snapped up and she fixed the younger woman with an intense and distrustful glare. "No, it's not. He just went to talk to the Professor. That's it."  
  
Red's lips pulled back into a smile. She had gotten under Kitty's skin, and had begun seeing some of her weak spots. If she kept pushing a little harder, she would know everything she had to in a matter of minutes...  
  
Pete caught her eye and shook his head. Before Red could continue just to spite him, Cloe entered the room breathlessly and everyone's attention shifted. Deterred, Red snarled and slouched further in the couch.  
  
"Rachel is more or less in a vegetative state," she reported grimly. She shook her head and whipped away a few beads of sweat that had accumulated there with the back of her hand. "There's not much I can do right now, but I did give her some things that should calm her down. She shouldn't be having any more convulsions at least. I won't be able to do more unless we take her back to England with us. Will will probably be a bigger help than I."  
  
Leaning against the wall, Pete nodded somberly. "We best be going to see the good ol' professor then, folks."  
  
Kitty was instantly on her feet. "What? Why?"  
  
Pete looked at her bewildered at her reaction. "To get some permission to take Rachel girl here back with us. Charley boy don't like us too much and he would probably accuse us of phoenix-napping." He shrugged, fingering the cigarettes that were tempting him so much in his jacket pocket. "Plus we can find your MIA lug of a husband."  
  
Kitty stood her ground, glaring intently at Pete. "Rachel does not belong to Charles. If anything, I'm more of her guardian than he is and I say she can go." She put her hands on her hips. "As for Piotr, I would appreciate it if you stayed out of my personal matters, Wisdom."  
  
He growled, striding across the room until his angry face was inches away from Kitty's. "Oh I get it now, Pryde. YOU make us get out of our bloody beds so we can come take YOUR bleeding crazy friend and clean up YOUR mess and then you tell me I should stay out of your PERSONAL matters?" He shook his head angrily. "Let me tell you something Pryde, I'd be more than happy to stay outside of your personal matters for the rest of my bleeding life. So if we fix up Rachel and clean up your mess well, you can bloody well fly over to us if you wanna see her." He looked over to the others who were watching him, mouths open. "Cloe, get Rachel ready. Red, call a taxi. We're out of here."  
  
And they were. Almost as quickly as they had come, they were gone. Alone in her house with her daughter, Kitty finally allowed herself to break down and cry. 


	8. Paint's Peeling

Title: Paint's Peeling  
  
A/N: I hate writer's block. I had dedicated my entire winter break to writing and I wasn't able to write a single thing. So this all was pent up for months and came out in the span of a few days, so please forgive me if it aint up to par. Thanks for reading, review at will!  
  
****** Paint's peeling off the streets again  
  
And I drive and close my eyes in Michigan  
  
And I feel nothing, not brave  
  
It's a hard day for breathing again  
  
The heat is chasing off all your friends  
  
And their scattered bodies part to the shore again  
  
And I feel nothing, not sane - Paint's Peeling by Rilo Kiley  
  
*********  
  
Kitty Pryde never liked to wait.  
  
But here she was, sitting at the kitchen table, her four year old child asleep in the next room, waiting for her husband to come home.  
  
Or at least waiting for some word from him. Maybe a call from Xavier's saying that the drive over had tired him out and he had decided to spend the night, but he was ready to come home now, all foolish concerns of paternity banished. Maybe a letter, or something equally impersonal and cowardly, full of insults and accusations or maybe even a confession and apology, saying that he had run away to Russia or back to Xavier's for just a while, just some time apart or that he was gone forever.  
  
It didn't really hurt that much right now. Everything had sort of gone numb.  
  
Rachel's second breakdown hadn't helped matters at all; even worse was the fact that her mental state brought Pete Wisdom, that old ghost, back into her life. Back into her life? Maybe that was giving him too much credit. At least back into her peripheral vision. The conclusions that everyone had jumped to, that Pete was actually Lilly's father and not Piotr, made her shiver. She remembered the desperate hope that she had had four years ago when she had wished that Pete was indeed the father. It seemed so far removed from her now, so alien. How could she ever want Pete as a father of her child? Once upon a time she did love him, yes, but she couldn't imagine he would ever love the idea of being a father. How could Pete's abrasive rudeness ever compete with the way Piotr was with Lilly, his tender devotion, the portraits he painted of her every Christmas, the intricate fairy tales he told her that rivaled the ones they used to tell to Illyana?  
  
It didn't matter that Piotr had never made her feel the way Pete had. Piotr had always been her rock, her calm support-the things she felt for him were equally calm and safe. Pete on the other hand had lit her up. He infuriated her, he challenged her, he made her feel passion she never had felt before and had not felt since. That passion had been invigorating, intoxicating, even somewhat socially acceptable when she was eighteen and nineteen. But she was close to thirty now, a wife and a mother. It wasn't so much about her anymore. But even as she thought that, there was something inside of her that screamed with protest, her mean streak, selfish and young still, that she had suppressed for years now. Lately there hadn't even been battle for her to work that out with. While she was still officially the team leader, first Sam Guthrie and currently Bobby Drake had led the team in battle while Kitty sat on the sidelines with her Lilly. Kitty had too little happy childhood memories herself for her to leave her daughter at home with some babysitter so that she could work her issues out by fighting.  
  
Piotr of course hadn't stopped fighting with the X-Men. For all of his sensitivity, he was still a product of communist Russia and could be awfully old fashioned; leaving the wife to stay at home with the children while he "worked" was common sense to him. Every time that he had gone off on a mission there was always that nagging doubt at the bottom of her heart that something would go wrong and Piotr wouldn't come home to her.  
  
That doubt hadn't ever been stronger or more toxic than it was right now.  
  
She wondered idly how long she should wait, how many hours was she supposed to sit in the kitchen with her now lukewarm cup of coffee before she was supposed to do anything. Slowly, analytically, her mind went over all of the possibilities and probabilities. She tried to figure which fate was worse. How would she feel if he had really taken off completely, skipped out with his tail between his legs, or if he was with another woman? The pain that she imagined she would feel was a dull, ugly blunt thing. It felt too insultingly commonplace to be hurt over the idea of the other woman after all the other types of pains she has been though, all the other kinds of hurts that one happened upon in a life like hers. That pain wasn't too commonplace for Piotr, she thought, slightly bitter and then upset at herself that she could be so petty. She grimaced as she took another sip of coffee.  
  
Kitty had been sitting at the kitchen table for something that seemed between the time span of minutes and a lifetime. All she knew for sure was that it had been about fourteen hours since Piotr had gone, and just over eight since Pete had left with Rachel. Lilly was thankfully still asleep, looking peaceful even though she had chosen to curl up in her father's favorite chair instead of her own bed. The possibility to call Xavier and the Institute was now open to her, but something was keeping Kitty back from dialing the phone. That insecurity-driven fear that Piotr wouldn't be there at all and she would have to explain herself to someone, probably Xavier. And that wouldn't do.  
  
Kitty was pulled out of her reverie by a sharp tug at her shirt. Looking down, she was surprised to see Lilly awake and alert, looking a million times better than Kitty probably did at this moment. Blinking down at her daughter, Kitty also realized that she wasn't sure exactly how long she had been sitting at the kitchen table, lost deep in thought. Time seemed malleable and unimportant suddenly.  
  
"Mommy?" Lilly shifted her weight back and forth anxiously. "Where's Daddy?"  
  
Kitty sighed before forcing a smile for her daughter and reaching down to mussing up Lilly's already messy bed head. "I don't know, sweetheart." More to herself, she added, "I wish I knew."  
  
Lilly cocked her head. She had grown up in the world of the X-Men. Her favorite "uncle" was a three fingered fuzzy blue elf who lived with his wife and child in the demonic region of Limbo. Just the other day she had walked through her bedroom door and had set it on fire. The extraordinary was painfully mundane to her. And she knew that her parents and her extended family had saved the universe many times, even once when she was a little baby. When they could do all this, why couldn't her mom find her daddy?  
  
Lilly bit her lip, thinking hard. Her mommy saved people, just like her daddy. Maybe if she said that her daddy was in trouble and needed to be saved, they could do and find him? She was, after all, a little worried about her daddy, even though she knew he was big and strong and could take care of himself.  
  
"Mommy, shouldn't we go and find Daddy?" Lilly finally said, twisting her hair around her finger.  
  
Kitty surpressed another sigh. She hated how cowardly she was being, waiting at home while Piotr could be anywhere. But since when had it been decided that he even needed her help? For all she knew, he never wanted to see her again. But, she thought, even if that was the case, she deserved at least a conversation before he disappeared forever. She had had too many people vanish out of her life. She felt a pang in her heart as she counted off those she had lost: Illyana, practically her sister; Doug, her kindred soul; Moira, who was like a mother while she was with Excalibur; her father and just two years ago, her own mother, estranged though she was. Years ago she would never had sat around waiting for so long without taking any action. Was her cautious behavior nothing more than indifference?  
  
Kitty shook her head, rubbing the back of her sore neck. She was more than a little ashamed at how she was acting, of how far she had already descended into self-pity. Logan, Kurt, even Piotr himself wouldn't have behaved like she had. And looking down at Lilly, she could see that her daughter was also confused by how she hadn't done anything yet.  
  
"You're right, honey. Come on, get in the car. We're going to go to the Professor's and see if he can find Daddy."  
  
While ushering Lilly into her jacket and then into the car, Kitty couldn't help but notice that Lilly had suddenly grown quiet and pale. And maybe she was just imaging things, but as Kitty drove up to Westchester and glanced at her daughter in the rear view mirror, she swore that she saw Lilly shake as they grew closer to the Institute.  
  
By the time they reached Xavier's, Kitty felt practically asleep. Looking at her reflection before just after she parked, Kitty studied her glazed over expression and the deep pockets under her eyes. She hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in the past twenty-four hours at least and it showed. Lilly didn't look very well either, her light dusting of freckles standing out stronger than usual against her abnormally pale skin. Kitty gathered Lilly up in her arms and her daughter clutched violently to her as the two made their way to the front door of the Institute.  
  
She paused at the front door. She didn't want to knock. Everything in her body was screaming for her to either turn and run away or to barge into the mansion and demand her husband. But she was mentally and emotionally exhausted. Damn it all, let Xavier sense her and come to her, let him send someone but she couldn't lift her hand to knock on the door. It was hard enough to keep Lilly secure in her arms. Lilly sniffled quietly as Kitty shifted her slightly against her hip, her big blue eyes nearly filling up with tears. As Lilly affixed her eyes on her mother, Kitty's heart sank. How pathetic she seemed, a broken mother with a scared and lost little daughter, begging without dignity, lost without her husband. Just as she desperately wanted a friendly face to answer the door, she was very aware that anyone who saw her now would never be able to reconcile Kitty's past strength with her current broken spirit. Just as she was about to gather what strength she had left, swallow pride and knock, the front door swung open.  
  
Standing in the doorway was a young woman, probably in her early twenties, a woman Kitty had never seen before. Tall and thin, the girl's pale skin was offset by her dark black hair pulled back in a messy pony tail with scattered strands of hair free of her black flower ponytail holder and long bangs flittering over the girl's gray eyes. The girl shifted in her black military cut shirt and short striped skirt, seeming momentarily nervous, before her thin pink lips pulled back into a soft smile.  
  
Thrown off by this unknown face, Kitty suddenly realized that she had no idea about what to say. She stood for a moment, her mouth open, waiting for the right words and Kitty was very aware that she looked like a fish waiting to be caught by a baited hook.  
  
She didn't have to worry about what to say for long because Lilly perked up in her mother's arms and beamed her patent adult charming smile up at the young woman. "Hello," Lilly said. "My name is Lilith, but you call me Lilly. We're looking for my daddy. Have you seen him?"  
  
The young woman smiled charmingly at Lilly before she rose her eyes up at Kitty and the fear flickered across her face once more for a second. "Come on in, Lilly, Miss Pryde," the young woman said evenly before gesturing with her head and walking from the doorway into the mansion. Kitty placed Lilly down on the ground, knowing that Lilly was always on her best behavior whenever they visited the Institute and the Lilly quickly padded off to keep up with the young woman. Exhausted as she was, it took Kitty several moments before she realized that she hadn't introduced herself to the young woman. And how long had it been since she was called Miss Pryde? She felt a bit bad admitting to herself that she enjoyed being called that name more than Mrs. Rasputin.  
  
Kitty followed Lilly and the shadow of the woman into the kitchen. While she looked around, she noticed that the halls of the Institute were particularly bare. She pushed open the doors of the kitchen and was even more surprised to see that the kitchen was completely empty besides the young woman and Lilly. Usually there were at least some traces of someone, whether it was a dirty breakfast dish left behind or an empty can of beer. Today, nothing. Kitty started to feel sick to her stomach.  
  
The young woman was perched on top of the kitchen counter, her fishnet clad legs swinging back and forth. Once again, Kitty felt at a lost for words but was saved this time by the young woman as she leaned forward with another small smile.  
  
"My name's Laila," she said, "and you've never seen me before because I just arrived at the Institute." Almost to herself, she added, "I don't plan on staying long. But I'm actually the only one here right now."  
  
Kitty saw Lilly pout and resisted the urge to do the same. "Where is everyone?" Kitty finally asked. There was something about Laila that was making her nervous. The young woman seemed too calm, too in control to be a new student left alone in a mansion. And since when had Xavier decided to wheel himself along with the others on missions? Unless it was a field trip. But that didn't explain why Laila was left behind here.  
  
Laila's face twitched slightly, again the nervous expression. "Maybe you should sit down, Ms. Pryde.. actually, what do you prefer to be called?"  
  
Kitty didn't like the way this conversation was headed. "Call me Kat, please." She motioned to her daughter. "Come sit down with me, Lilly." The little girl nodded her head gravely and scampered to her mother's side.  
  
"Can I get you anything to eat or drink, Kat?" Laila asked and Kitty knew instantly that she didn't want to hear what the girl knew.  
  
"No, Laila, thank you." Kitty's voice was as tight and nervous as Laila's was and Lilly glanced back and forth between the two women, confused. "Please," Kitty didn't care about begging anymore, "please, tell me what's going on."  
  
Laila sighed and pushed off from the kitchen counter and slid languidly into the chair across from Kitty. She leaned forward, her eyes intense, her mouth a hard, straight line. Closer to her, Kitty realized that she had a silver piercing on her left cheek; before, she had assumed it was just a dimple. "Look, I don't want to lie to you, Kat. I've been here barely a week. I don't know the inner politics of this place too well, how everything works."  
  
Kitty also chocked in surprise. "Inner politics? This is a *school*."  
  
Laila shrugged in a dismissive way. "Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't know if I'm the one whose supposed to say anything. It probably should be left to Xavier."  
  
"But Xavier isn't here now, is he?" Kitty gritted her teeth. "Tell me what the hell is going on."  
  
Laila shrugged and her eyes seemed suddenly very sad. "Your husband was here last night. I'm the one who let him in. He seemed distracted, confused, and he immediately went off to talk to Dr. McCoy and the Professor. He didn't say what about. He didn't seem angry or depressed, just curious. About half an hour after he went into Xavier's office, the mission alarm went off. Since Ms. Frost had taken the students yesterday on a weekend long trip to the Redwoods, only the active members of the X- Men and I were in the mansion. Xavier got everyone on the Blackbird and took off." Her mouth twisted. "I'm assuming Piotr went with them as well."  
  
Kitty leaned forward sharply, looking with narrowed eyes sharply at Laila. "What are you, Laila? A telepath? An empath? Ever since we arrived here, I've been getting these odd vibes from you... these almost, and I know this will sound crazy, omniscient vibes."  
  
Laila leaned back in her chair, allowing herself a small smile. "I'm a precog, actually."  
  
Kitty clung onto this bit of information desperately. "So you can tell me what's going on, what's going to happen." The words 'what has happened' screamed in her head but stayed still within her. The temptation to ask Laila a question about the future that shed light onto the Lilly's paternity was great but glancing over at her daughter, Kitty realized that it didn't matter right now; she just wanted her family back and happy.  
  
Laila's head cocked to the side and she chewed her bottom lip. "I technically could, but..."  
  
"Please, don't give me that 'it'll change the future' line," Kitty hissed, her frustration boiling up. "I don't care if it does; I just have to know something. God, I need to know *something*."  
  
Lilly blinked up at her mother, scared at the venom in her voice. Laila didn't even blink. "That wasn't what I was going to say, Kat," Laila said calmly. Her eyes flicked back and forth between mother and child. "Would you mind stepping out with me for a second?"  
  
Kitty looked down at her daughter as she stood up, patting her shoulder. Her heart was down in her stomach. She felt like the women from World War II. Laila was the black car pulling up in front of her house with the men from the military. She moved as if in a trance. She knew what every step was taking her closer to and she didn't want it, she wanted to throw all of this all away, she would do anything if she just didn't have to walk out of this kitchen and meet Laila outside and hear what she had to say.  
  
She knew what she was walking to and she walked to it anyway.  
  
*************************  
  
Cloe shook her head. She had been testing Rachel for hours straight now and she wasn't getting anywhere. Reaching up, she undid her bun and let her dark hair fall down heavy around her shoulders, massaging her sore neck.  
  
"Hey stranger," a voice breathed into her ear.  
  
Cloe jumped and spun, playfully smacking Will on his shoulder when she saw it was him. "Do you usually sneak up on people, Dr. Griffin?"  
  
Will beamed a smile back, flipping a few of strands of her hair off her shoulder teasingly. "Only when they've been slaving away for hours, Dr. Olivia."  
  
Cloe sighed heavily, tapping her pen against the metal gurney on which an unconscious Rachel lay. "I can't stop, Will," she spoke quietly, "I'm sorry, but I can't stop until I can figure out what's wrong."  
  
Will shrugged, flicking his own pen against the clipboard in his hands. He paused for a moment, his eyes flicking over the numbers and figures before him. And then he sighed, shaking his head. "Cloe, you've been up for hours now, I flew in from Germany to be here, we need to rest." He rested his hand on her shoulder. "I know you don't like to hear stuff like this, but there's nothing we can do right now."  
  
Cloe forced an exhausted smile. "You're just saying that because you're mad I pulled you away from your latest boy toy."  
  
Will gave a short bark of laughter. "Who said I left him behind?" He leered at her, giving her a comical eyebrow waggle. "And if you run into a half naked blonde young man, don't let him hear you call him a 'boy toy'."  
  
Cloe gave him the best she could manage, which was an authentic smile. "You have a reason to go to bed, Will. No reason for a single like me."  
  
He shrugged, reaching out and grabbing Cloe's hand, spinning her around before grabbing her in his arms. "Maybe, Doctor, the reason you don't have a nice warm body to tempt you to bed is because you spend all your time working?"  
  
She smiled, shaking her head, pushing him away gently. "We can't all be playboys like you, Will. Some of us are just married to our job." She shrugged as an apology.  
  
"Ah well," he said, patting her shoulder. "I hope you don't mind that I'm going to be off to bed now." He rubbed the back of his neck, setting aside his clipboard. "I can't work without at least seven hours."  
  
Cloe nodded. "That's fine. I'll be up for a bit longer. There are just a few more tests I want to run."  
  
Will paused at the doorway, tired eyes peering cautiously at Cloe. "Don't overwork yourself, Cloe. Not to be crude, but she," he motioned to Rachel with his head, "isn't going anywhere."  
  
He left then and Cloe listened as he walked down the hall and up the stairs until she couldn't hear him anymore. Alone with Rachel, she breathed deeply and collapsed into a chair at the catatonic girl's side. Cloe ran her fingers along the ends of Rachel's red hair, listening breathlessly to Rachel's breath and heartbeat, staring at the lines and creases of the girl's face. Looking at the twisted, angst-ridden expression on Rachel's face, Cloe felt a sharp pain deep within her. Here was a girl who was suffering from something that she shouldn't have, something that Cloe in fact should be suffering from. And it was one man, Charles Xavier, which somehow had a link in this, that had cured Cloe but had possibly driven Rachel sick. And what made it worse for her was that it seemed there was nothing Cloe could do, even if she knew for sure what was inflicting Rachel. Will and she had used every method they had to revive Cloe, from smelling salts to the latest technology. Nothing. Rachel continued to remain unconscious, not in a coma, but in something more akin to a deep sleep which she could be woken from. Except that there seemed nothing in medical science that could awake her.  
  
Cloe stood, leaning over Rachel's prone form. After her first encounter with Rachel a few years ago, Cloe had studied the MI-X file on her and knew as much as anyone could about Rachel's intricate and complicated past. Here was a girl, about half a decade younger than her that had lived three different lives. Cloe knew that that kind of stress could push nearly anyone to a psychological break. But Rachel's breakdown didn't appear to be organic at all. Instead, it seemed forced, artificial, a hasty and scattered attempt at a convincing case of schizophrenia. But Cloe was more than aware that this conclusion of hers could in fact be a result of her feelings for Rachel, her empathy and her uncharacteristically fierce protection for the girl. Fixing a few of Rachel's stray hairs, Cloe found her hand running along the girl's face, admiring her cheeks, her lips, her neck, but her stomach twisting at the pain that was obviously written in those features.  
  
Cloe knelt on the floor, grasping Rachel's hand in hers, looking as if she was praying or worshipping. "Please," she whispered, "please, just give me some idea about how to help."  
  
"Hey."  
  
Cloe spun around clumsily, knocking her legs together and landing on the floor with her legs crossed. She peered up at the slim, dark figure leaning in the doorway from between stands of hair. Pete stepped into the room quietly and slid on the floor in front of her, his legs crossed as well, his knees touching hers.  
  
Cloe's eyebrows darted up. It wasn't like Pete to be like this, to pass up opportunities to mock her, or at the very least poke fun at her, without saying a word and then to lower himself on the ground and onto her level. She looked him over quickly, thinking back to the last time he had behaved out of character, years ago after receiving the invitation to Kitty and Piotr's wedding. He had been a shell, nearly catatonic, nowhere near as bad as Rachel was now, but certainly bad. He didn't seem to be in that state now, but he definitely wasn't himself. His face was drawn, his eyes exhausted.  
  
"Pete," she said, stumbling for the right thing to say, "How are you?"  
  
His washed out eyes held hers and she couldn't look away. His layers had all been burned away, she could see, the defensive sarcasm, the deceptive obnoxious behavior, all of it had been stripped away until there he was, a man in a ridiculously rumpled suit with only his intense instinct for self- preservation to keep him going.  
  
"You told me to see ya," he muttered, his mouth barely moving. "Here I am."  
  
Cloe had forgotten. As soon as the plane had touched down in London, she had instructed Pete to get some sleep and then come see her before she rushed off to attend to Rachel. She had meant it, but she honestly didn't think that Pete would have taken her up on the offer. Over the years, Cloe had come to know every member relatively well, whether it was from simple observation or from mandatory monthly meetings. But Pete had always remained a mystery for the most part. She had dozens of theories about his behavior, about who he was and why but they were all completely theories. While the majority of the team had been receptive to having a dialogue with her where they could validate these theories (it had taken Red nearly two years to get to that point), Pete was a stone that could not be moved. He made it more than obvious that the way he dealt with things was keeping them inside and not beating it to death. It was hard enough to make him show up on time if at all to their monthly meetings, it was a miracle that he had come of his own free will now.  
  
"There you are," she mumbled, ungracefully scanning her brain desperately to find something to say. "Is there anything you want to talk about in particular?"  
  
He shrugged, his fingers playing with an unlit cigarette. "How is she?" A brusque motion of his head made it clear that he was referring to Rachel.  
  
Cloe sighed and instantly berated herself; how many times had she sighed in the past two hours? "Not good." She glanced over at Rachel, at her stile pale hand that lay hanging off the side of the stretcher. "She's in some kind of catatonic state, nothing I've ever seen before."  
  
Now Pete was playing with his lighter. "Could it have something to do with those brain blocks you found years ago?"  
  
Cloe blinked dumbly. When Rachel had first come into her care, a CT scan by Will had shown what Cloe and Will had called mind or brain blocks, small artificially created masses that were in Rachel's brain, moderating different nerves, and different brain functions. Neither of the two had ever been able to find out what exactly they were and had let the matter drop after Rachel healed and returned to America. There had never been an official report.  
  
"How do you know about those?" she asked.  
  
There was a ghost of a cocky grin on his face. "Come off it. I'm the leader of this motley bunch. I'm supposed to know everything that goes on here." He lit his cigarette and brought it slowly to his lips, his eyes burning with intensity briefly before returning to empty. "And while we're on the subject, why was it ever a secret?" He took a deep breath of smoke and blew it out evenly. "Practice what you preach, Doc."  
  
In any other situation, at any other time, Cloe would have been livid. But she knew right now Pete didn't have it in him to be malicious. He had a point. While she had harangued him often for refusing to talk about what he felt, she herself had kept one of the most important, and distressing, factors of her life a secret, something she only shared with Will out of coincidence, something that was slowly eating her heart away. Her own CT scan had shown signs of mind blocks as well, though not as old as Rachel's. And she was pretty sure where she had gotten hers from. Years ago, around the time of her puberty, Cloe began hearing voices. She said nothing about them for weeks, enjoying this secret thrill of power. She had finally told her parents when the voices began to become threatening, alternating between telling her that she should kill and that she should be killed. This was right around the time when mutants were becoming public knowledge, and Cloe's parents instantly sent her over to Xavier's, all the way from Italy, for help. One quick scan of Cerebro determined she was not a telepathic mutant. But after some other sessions with Xavier and Cerebro she had returned home normal, and had never heard another voice again. Xavier had 'cured' her schizophrenia by blocking it, by trying to move the nerves in her brain to resemble a normal human. He wasn't able to destroy it, because it was essentially part of who she was, part of her genetic makeup. Instead, he was able to suppress it, bypass it for a bit.  
  
Cloe had discovered all this after Rachel's CT scan and she had made Will promise to never speak of it again. Every night as she went to sleep, she burned with the knowledge that this disease was inside her, being held back for just a bit longer.  
  
It hurt that Pete had brought this up. It hurt because she knew he was right, she was being hypocritical and a coward.  
  
But that wasn't about to change tonight.  
  
"It might have something to do with the mind blocks," Cloe said calmly, changing the topic back to the previous one. "The problem is that I have no clue how to remove them, save some tinkering by a high level telepath. And to be honest, I'm not too keen on that either."  
  
"How did you fix her the last time?" She could see by the way that he stared at the embers on his cigarette butt that he didn't really care.  
  
"Talk therapy. Which is impossible if you remain unconscious." She bit her lip, awkwardly shifting her weight on the uncomfortable floor. "What was it like to see Kitty again, Pete?"  
  
He gave a short bark of laughter that held no amusement in it. "No more beating around the bush, eh?" He cocked his head, flicking his pointer finger against the cigarette, watching the embers scatter around the floor before cooling and disappearing. "It was bloody hard."  
  
Cloe pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging herself tightly. She felt for this man, she did, but she couldn't help but be scared. She had seen him in battle, seen how ruthless he could be. And she was scared of how he would react if he let all of those repressed emotions out all at once.  
  
He turned the cigarette upside and down idly, watching the spiraling smoke. "I was damn embarrassed of myself. She calls in the middle of the night, gives no real good explanation and I jump up and fly across the sodding ocean with nothing to show for myself but teammates who can barely stand me. And there she is, with a bleedin' child no less, and I hate her because she still has some hold over me. She has power over me. You know, when I first saw her yesterday, I didn't know if I wanted to slap her or kiss her but by the end of our little visit, I'm fairly sure that the violence would have won out." His mouth twitched into a grin for a moment before he scowled again. "I hate how petty she made me, wishing that the overgrown tin can of hers was out with another woman, not carin' how much that would destroy her. God dammit, it's been nearly a decade, and I've done nothin' but regressed. The things she did to me, the viciousness, I'm not sure that I would ever forgive her." His eyes flickered up to Cloe's, tremulous. "The thing that really gets me, though, is I know if ever really asked for forgiveness, I would give it to her in a second."  
  
Cloe was rapt. Never before had she heard Pete talk about things so personal. "Do you still love her?"  
  
His head twitched a bit at that. "Look, its bloody embarrassing enough to be here saying all these things. Don't make me answer that question."  
  
She shrugged in acceptance. "Fair enough." She paused for a moment. "You talked about Kitty's child. Do you want to get married, have a family?"  
  
He snorted, shaking his head. "Isn't that always covered in the 'bleeding embarrassing questions' clause?" When Cloe didn't say anything, he sighed. "I used to, I suppose. A long time ago. I'm too old now."  
  
"Pete, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised and happy about how you're opening up." Cloe looked into his eyes earnestly. "But I need to know if this is some one of a kind deal. If you're going to go back to your room later, either beat up some guy or have sex with some girl to get out all of your tension and then the shell is back up. Because I will be friggin pissed off if that's the case."  
  
Pete stared at her, his dim blue eyes wide with shock and a bemused grin pulling on the corners of his face. Suddenly he lunged forward and Cloe instinctively raised her arms up, her heart seizing with the idea that he was attacking her, her mind racing to figure out what way, if any, she could protect herself.  
  
Instead, his hands curled around her head, his figures lacing into her dark strands of thick hair and he pulled her head forward just as he pushed his face towards hers. And caught her lips in a deep, hard kiss.  
  
He held it for a few more moments before releasing her with the same gusto that he had grabbed her, drawing back with a large grin on his face and a gleam in his eye. Cloe sputtered, too shocked to form an articulate sentence as she watched Pete almost triumphantly get to his feet, towering over her.  
  
"There," he said, beaming down at her, "All the tension is out. So don't be friggin pissed off." And then he turned and walked out, his walk less weighted and sulky, or could that be her imagination? She was still reeling for the kiss so it was hard to say.  
  
Slowly she made it back to her feet, still blinking in shock. She felt her way to her desk and caught a glimpse of her reflection in a metal table. Her hair was unkempt, her eyes deep and her mouth was red and might become bruised. She could feel it coming from deep inside of her until she couldn't hold it back any longer. And there, alone at three in the morning, Cloe began to laugh hysterically.  
  
A few more moments, a dozen more chuckles, a shake of her head and Cloe made it to her desk, smiling. As she sat there before a stack of forms and papers she realized that Pete had managed to do the impossible.  
  
He had called her a hypocrite and made her feel free in the same single swift jarring motion.  
  
She giggled and allowed herself to giggle. After all, she had spent hours in her lab, had just been kissed by a man obsessed with his ex while she was obsessed with her catatonic patient.  
  
She was allowed to go a little loopy.  
  
**********  
  
She sat at her new desk, shifting through the pile of cards, separating the blank invitations from the condolences. After her pen had run out of ink, she had spent the next hour or so out of the house, scouring drug stores, supermarkets and office supplies stores for another pen that worked just as well, if not better.  
  
They had told her that she would do things like this. She was disappointed to prove them right.  
  
She staked the letters addressed to her on her left, quickly leafing through and putting them in alphabetical order. She figured that everyone who sent a condolence deserved an invitation and she was going to go about this the right way.  
  
Amanda popped her head in from the next room. "Kitty," she said softly and Kitty's mind was off, thinking about the state of her name. Everyone she knew well from her younger years still insisted on calling her Kitty, while the rest complied with her older and 'more mature' name Kat. There had been some attempts, mainly by Rachel, to call her Kate instead but Kitty had refused. That name had been lying ahead of her, waiting, since she was thirteen and she hated the idea of this inescapable future. The future where she had been married to Piotr and he had been killed.  
  
Not much was different in this future. Just the letter 'e'.  
  
"Kitty," Amanda called again, bringing Kitty back to the present, as much as she didn't want to. "I'm going to take a trip out to the store," Amanda continued. "Do you need anything?"  
  
"No," Kitty said evenly. "I have my pen."  
  
Amanda nodded gravely and disappeared and Kitty wondered idly if by store Amanda had been referring to some shop in Limbo. Ever since Amanda and Kurt had married, the two had spent the majority of their time in Limbo, occasionally fighting off demons but mostly lying low. While at first Kitty had been mad at Kurt for abandoning this dimension for Limbo, the two eventually worked out a system where Kitty could contact Kurt and Amanda though the small link that she still had with the Soulsword and then Kurt could instantly teleport to her side. She hadn't even needed to contact them this time. Her grief had nearly caused the Soulsword to burst.  
  
Almost as if on cue, Kurt entered the room, his son Christian who was just a few months young then Lilly gravely tottering behind him and his nearly year old daughter Helen in his arms. Christian instantly walked up to Kitty, tugging on the long denim shirt that she wore.  
  
"Christian," Kurt said warningly, peering at his mischievous son though his own bloodshot and cloudy eyes. Kitty hadn't thought he would be taking this as hard as her. She had forgotten how close the two had been.  
  
Christian ignored his father, gazing up at Kitty with squinting brown eyes. "Aunt Kitty," he started, his voice bigger than his tiny frame, "I trying to play with Lilly. She used to be fun, but now she cries too much." Blinking up at Kitty, he pleaded, "Fix her?"  
  
And then Kitty lost it. She was drowning in a whirlpool of her own tears and sobs and she was grateful for the rest, the unconscious oblivion.  
  
******* Kali paused, crouching in the shadows. She could sense him coming, could feel him even, feel his fear. Kali had been worshipped for hundreds of generations, partly for her fear manipulation abilities. Millions had prayed to her so that they would remove their fear. And now here she was, hiding, waiting for the kill and feeling the fear of the approaching man enliven her. In turn, she made a small gesture with her hand and increased the man's fear to a near-terror level, enough for his legs to shake but not enough for him to run and not fulfill his job. She was too involved for her prey to flee before she had her chance.  
  
She bared her teeth, feeling the surge of power as she transformed into her goddess form. Her extra four arms emerged, her skin turned blue and she smiled. She lived for this.  
  
She jumped upward, one of her left arms grabbing an overhead pipe and she used it to propel herself though the air. She landed and held herself up in the corner directly across from the door that the man was staggering up to. Her ear twitched as she heard footsteps falling behind her and she knew she was running out of time.  
  
But it didn't matter. The man was at the door now, his sweaty hands fumbling for the precious cargo he had slung over his shoulder. In what seemed like one single instant, Kali was at the door, tearing it open, barring her teeth at the man and grabbing the important goods, smiled and slammed the door in his face.  
  
Hugh padded into the room, stretching his arms over his head. He grinned sleepily at Kali. "Terrorizing the postman again, Kali?"  
  
Kali grinned sheepishly and shrugged, shuffling through the mail. "He keeps coming back so I figure no harm done." She shook her head and the blue skin and extra four arms instantly disappeared. "I've been going stir crazy around here with nothing to do."  
  
Hugh nodded slightly, taking a sip of his steaming coffee as he sat on the nearby long couch. Kali hurried over to him and perched on the couch arm rest.  
  
"Hugh, we've got a problem." Her voice was ice cold.  
  
"Kali, I know how you feel, but you're just going to have to accept it that I'm going to get more fan mail than you-"  
  
"Shut up," she hissed. Hugh's head popped up from studying his coffee and looked at Kali, confused. He could swear he saw the woman shaking.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"It's a card," she whispered. "From Xavier's."  
  
Hugh bit his lip, taking a long drink of coffee. "It's too early in the morning to deal with all of this," he muttered.  
  
Kali frowned and then made up her mind. "I'm not going though this again, dammit. Let's open it now."  
  
Hugh rolled his eyes. "Great," he mumbled as Kali tore though the envelope, "I'm sure that will make things better." He heard the rustling stop and he looked over at Kali.  
  
Her face was white, her jaw slack. She had what looked like an invitation in front of her, holding it out almost at arm's length as if it would attack. She had stopped shaking, but her limbs had grown very rigid.  
  
"What is it?" Hugh asked nervously.  
  
"It's an invitation," Kali said, her voice tense. "An invitation to Piotr Rasputin's funeral." 


	9. Shakespeare's Sister

Title: Shakespeare's Sister  
  
A/N: This one is pumped out in about an hour or so and it's supposed to be frantic, intense, rushed. Mental breakdowns and buildups are like that, I suppose. :D Tell me what you think though! I'm feeling a lot better about this whole thing as my writer's block begins to disappear...YAY! I might even get around to working on my Excalibur Evolution. ;) This is all Rachel's POV, btw.  
  
*******  
  
I am fluid now. In this coma, in this sleep. The only constant is Cloe Olivia.  
  
She reminds me of Shakespeare and I think about how I would call her Olivia, and not Cloe, and everyone would think I was being formal and distant, but they would be wrong. In Shakespeare, Olivia fell in love with the wrong person; she accidentally fell in love with a woman. So I would call her Olivia.  
  
Not much else penetrates. I push it back. I want to push it all back, the responsibility, the powers, the name. The Phoenix always rises again. I don't want to rise. I want this cocoon forever. No one ever asked if I wanted this, if I could take it. I'm so tired, tired.  
  
They used to try to get someone inside my head, but it didn't work. The others have gotten tired of me now, I don't do much, I'm a lost cause. Just Olivia, Olivia always coming to talk to me, to tell me words that I hear but I don't listen.  
  
I catch snippets. Something about Lilly and Kitty, and they're fine. Something about Pete and then it starts to flare up inside of me again, and I shut down because it hurts, hurts so much. I spend the time fighting not to hurt, fighting not to think certain thoughts. I don't know how long I've been under, but I think it's been months.  
  
And it's not like I don't miss them. I do. But I can't open myself up, I can't unfurl anymore. I am tight, fetus position and I'm not unrolling for anyone.  
  
Dr. Griffith stops by every once and a while, checking my responses. I can feel my body move, jerk, but I am not there. Red came down once, with a man, maybe Pete or maybe someone else, probably not Pete. She tried to get the man to make love to her on the floor beside me. The man was horrified and ran. She stayed behind and sat next to me for a while, not trying to enter my mind this time and she didn't have to. She knew what I was thinking, because it's always the same. She knew that I wanted it to happen, the two of them beside me, a distraction with four arms and four legs. I think maybe she felt for me then. But she hasn't come back.  
  
Just Olivia, dark, sweet Olivia. Every day, without fail. She is so desperate for me to be okay that I feel bad about disappointing her, about being selfish and self-preserving. But I am mad at her too, mad that there is so much on me, that I can't rest even now.  
  
But she begins talking more and I can't stop the words from coming.  
  
"We heard from Katherine today." Katherine? Oh, Kitty. "Actually, Hugh did and passed it on to me. Pete won't talk to her." Don't say that name, not that name. "They're doing okay. Managing. Charles is helping support them, but they've had to move back into the Academy." What? Why? "It took Lilly a bit to adjust, but I think she's adjusting fine now. Kat is fine too, though she is upset over Charles having Lilly train." Has it been years then that I've been out? Is Lilly four or fourteen? "She wanted to know how you were. Hugh said you were fine. I don't like it that he lies like that, but he's just trying to make her happy." The truth won't make her happy; nothing is fine, not with me anyway. "She just finished her yahrzeit last week. Amazing to think its been a year." A year? Oh god. That seems like so long and yet so short. "It was really hard for Kat there for a while. We thought she might have lost it." I'm sorry, my fault too. "But she's okay now. Better. Kurt helped." Kurt? What about Piotr? Don't tell me he really left, he didn't come back. I can hear her sigh, almost fell her run her hands through her long hair. "A year. To think that Piotr's been dead for a whole year."  
  
I'm off. I don't open up, I thrust and throw myself open. Novas and cosmos are dancing inside my head again, welcoming me back. Piotr dead? Dead? No. It's not right and I push my grief out onto all the stars. I can feel Olivia's panic, her confusion as she tries to hold my rising body down, but there is no use. I am my name. I am Phoenix and I was born to rise. My mind, my thoughts hurtle a million different directions and I read the time line, find she's not lying. There's so much going on and so fast but I relish in it, the power feeling good amazingly enough after a year of rest. I can feel something cracking in my brain, but I can tell that it's not bad that this is happening, it's good, because its not part of me.  
  
For the first time in so long, I feel like me. And I am powerful.  
  
I spiral down, watching history, pinpointing certain events and reading them, telepathically scanning thoughts and even all the thoughts in the world cannot drown out the one I am searching for, the one I am finding. It is loud and hateful and destructive and I know it too well; I've heard it before too many times without knowing.  
  
There's Piotr, a look of panic, his mouth twisted into an 'o' as he begins to fall forward. The enemy has his gun leveled straight at his back, a clear shot right through the heart. He is alone on the field, dying, dead. The bullet flies over his shoulder and leaves him untouched.  
  
His mind has been lit aflame. It wasn't the bullet. It was an aneurysm, a blood clot to the brain. Created, not organic.  
  
It's so wrong and the whole universe screams with injustice, with punishment and retribution. I am not Rachel Summers. I am Phoenix, bringer of justice, messenger of the stars. I do what they know is right.  
  
**************  
  
Miles away, Charles Xavier straightened in his wheelchair, his body tightened. There was no time to gasp, no air left in his lungs to do it, no heart left to try.  
  
In his minds he saw flames.  
  
Katherine Pryde was the one to discover him when she went to report to his office for a meeting. He was half out of the wheelchair, his head, shoulders and upper chest slumped on the floor, his neck twisted without dignity, his mouth in a small little 'o' and his skin dead cold.  
  
Flies had begun to settle around the body. 


	10. Maybe It's Time to Live

Title: Maybe It's Time to Live  
  
A/N: Loooong time coming on this one, and I apologize if it's too lengthy. However, that said, I'm *very* happy that I've finally managed to get it all out of me.  
  
GoddessChild- Charles has a hard time learning from his mistakes, apparently. :P And thanks for your compliment, I'm glad that I got the sense of a mental breakdown across.  
  
Lightspeed Suzuka- Hmm... in love? Maaaybe. But right now, it's a friendship thing, with Cloe being Rachel's anchor to reality. Okay, so maybe that's BS and its all love. You will have to wait and see. And I'm SO glad someone finally felt bad for Piotr.  
  
Oldprydefan- It's a-okay to celebrate Xavier's death! I always thought that he was the most overdue for a death than anyone else. His character would probably mean so much more as a martyr than an old mentor. However, he isn't gonna be either in my story. BAWAHAHA.  
  
Anythingbutordinary3- So yep, by now you know that Kitty knows the truth and she's still trying to figure it all out. I'm not guaranteeing anything about Kitty and Pete getting together again... at least, not automatically. Still plenty of unresolved issues there, don't ya think?  
  
Harry- That's exactly where I'm going. Dammit, I swear you must read my mind. :)  
  
Now on with the story!  
  
******  
  
"I was at a funeral the day I realised  
  
I wanted to spend my life with you  
  
sitting down on the steps at the old post office  
  
the flag was flying at half mast  
  
and I was thinkin' 'bout how everyone was dying  
  
and maybe it is time to live" -P.S. You Rock My World by The Eels  
  
******  
  
Laila sat on the cornerstone of the church stairs and watched the sun come up over the Westchester treetops. Laying a hand on the cold stone, she closed her eyes. She knew she shouldn't stay much longer. Eventually, the neighborhood church would be full and she would be miles away. But now she had time.  
  
She stood up and pulled herself up onto the stairway ledge. As she balanced along it, she sighed and shivered in the morning air. In a matter of hours it would all begin and then it would end something that had existed for years. And she had been a player in it, despite her promise to herself years ago that she wouldn't. But it was too late now to kick herself. She had helped set this in motion. She couldn't back out now.  
  
It was too late for the future.  
  
*******  
  
"Lilly!" Kurt was quickly becoming tired of shouting and he felt more and more ridiculous as he stood in the middle of the living room holding onto a small girl's black patent shoes.  
  
'What's wrong, hon?" came a soft, tired voice behind him. He looked over his blue furred shoulder to see his wife, her eyes slightly sunken in to her skull, her fight tight with exhaustion. Worry quickly pulsed through his body; Amanda had taken Xavier's death a lot harder than he would have thought. Kurt himself felt jaded against it. He had left Xavier behind years ago, and the parting had been less than friendly. Not the same for Amanda who had only experienced Charles's benevolence.  
  
"Lilly has evaded me once again," Kurt sighed. "She refuses to put her shoes on."  
  
"They hurt," a small voice whined and Kurt looked down and found his son Christian clinging to Lilly Pryde, the two small children ducking behind Amanda's legs.  
  
Christian looked up proudly at his father, his yellow eyes twinkling. "I found her, Dad! An' I told her if she tries to run away, I'll teleport her to Limbo." Next to him, Lilly pouted at Kurt and glared daggers at Christian.  
  
"I don't want to put those shoes on, Uncle Kurt," she said evenly, her voice amazingly mature for her five years of age. "They pinch my toes."  
  
Smiling at his 'niece', Kurt threw the shoes into the air and his tail quickly lashed out to catch them by the straps and simultaneously scooped up Lilly and quickly bamfed them both into the front hallway, leaving his young son behind to make a big show of coughing at the smell of sulfur and brimstone.  
  
When they arrived in the hall, Lilly was giggling and smiling, the teleportation ride in her uncle's fuzzy arms having cheered her up. However, a frown quickly re-appeared on her face when Kurt flipped her shoes in the air and caught them in his hands.  
  
Smiling as an apology, Kurt said, "I'm sorry Lillster, but your mommy wants you to wear these."  
  
Lilly's frown deepened even further. "I don't care what my mommy wants," she huffed.  
  
He frowned. "Listen, honey, I know this past year has been tough for you. It's been tough for all of us. And I know you miss your daddy," Kurt's voice hitched slightly as he noticed a small amount of tears welling up in Lilly's blue eyes, "but it was extra hard on your mommy. She needed," he paused, thinking of the best way to phrase it, "some time off."  
  
"Some time away from me," Lilly whispered, her small face twisting into a pout. Kurt quickly opened up his arms to the girl who he had partially raised over half of last year and she quickly darted into his embrace. Sniffling, she quickly settled against the comfortable and familiar feeling of his chest.  
  
"Not at all, leibching," Kurt said soothingly, slightly rocking Lilly back and forth. "Not at all." And yet, he knew that that was part of the reason. Right after Piotr's death, Kitty was completely inconsolable, blaming the whole mess on herself. After several tearful and hysterical nights, Kitty couldn't survive underneath all the weight of that self- imposed guilt and slowly the guilt began being transferred to Lilly. Lilly who was of dubious paternity, Lilly who had Piotr's and Peter's eyes, Lilly who had set off the whole discovery and ensuing chaos. As Kitty became more and more unhinged, the more Kurt worried that her dissatisfaction and anger would turn into visible violence and rage. And so he had taken Lilly from her and sent Kitty away for a mental vacation. She had come back more together but as the anniversary of Piotr's death had approached, she began to act more erratic again.  
  
But then Xavier had died, and that had changed everything, of course.  
  
Kurt still found it hard to believe that Rachel was responsible for Xavier's bizarre death. Sure, the cause of death, the phoenix burned into the rug at his feet and Rachel's sudden reawakening at same time as his death was all very suspicious, but he had known Rachel when they were both in Excalibur together. And though she had been a haunted and traumatized girl, he had never known her to brutally murder anyone, lest of all someone that had meant so much to her, someone who she had watched die before.  
  
But then again, if the rumor about Xavier's behavior was indeed true...  
  
Kurt shook his head. Over the past few days, he had caught whispers of allegations about Charles manipulating people but he had been too focused on taking care of both Kitty and Lilly to devote proper time and contemplation to it. All he knew is that if the rumors were correct and it was indeed Rachel that had killed him, he couldn't blame her. In fact, even if the rumors were false, he could not find it in himself to hate Rachel. He laughed shortly to himself. Despite all his efforts to the contrary, he had become an even more devout Catholic than before it seemed.  
  
Back in the moment, Kurt slid the shoes onto the grumbling Lilly's feet, tickling the sides of them to make her laugh. He heard a noise on the stair and he looked up to see Kitty slowly floating down the stairs.  
  
Since Xavier's death, she had been different. Better. Lighter. She carried herself prouder and straighter now; it seemed as if a heavy burden had been lifted off of her shoulders. Kurt hated to admit it, but Charles Xavier dying had been good for her.  
  
She smiled down at her daughter and ruffled her hair affectionately, and Lilly instantly forgot her grievances with her mother and giggled. "How you doing, Lil?" Kitty asked gently. "You look very pretty; have you thanked Kurt for helping you get ready?"  
  
"Thanks Mommy," Lilly smiled, standing up and smoothing down her light gray dress. Ceremoniously, she turned to Kurt and seemed to bow slightly. "Thanks Uncle Kurt."  
  
"Now get out of here and play with your cousins," Kitty said, smacking Lilly playfully on her back. Giggling, Lilly ran out of the room, her long black hair streaming behind her.  
  
"She's just going to take those shoes off, you know," Kurt said, smiling gently at Kitty.  
  
She grinned back and gave a quick shrug. "We'll just have to corner her later then. Besides, those shoes do look a little bit uncomfortable."  
  
"How are you holding up?" he asked, quietly.  
  
Another shrug. "Fine, I suppose. It seems odd, but I'm more in shock that Charles chose me to deliver his eulogy than the fact that he's dead." She shook her head, hugged herself and looked into space. "Piotr's death still hurts more than this, and I hate to say but Piotr doesn't hurt as much as it used it."  
  
"It's been a year. It's bound to happen, I suppose."  
  
"Still, I feel guilty." She bit her lip. "I feel... like I betrayed him."  
  
"You didn't, Katzchen. Don't even think that you did."  
  
She sighed. "But if only I hadn't-"  
  
He cut her off. "Don't start with the 'if only's'—they won't come to any good."  
  
Kitty smiled lopsidedly at him. "You know, for the co-leader of Limbo, you sound an awful lot like a Catholic priest."  
  
Kurt gave a short bark of laughter. "That's the second time today I've realized that." He put his arm affectionately around her shoulders, leading her into her living room. "There's no way of running around for your roots, ja?"  
  
"Yeah," she said quietly, looking down introspectively. "Is it true, Kurt?" she asked suddenly, her voice laden with worry and her eyes seemingly panicked. "Is it true that Pete is going to be here?"  
  
Looking at her, Kurt wondered if she realized that she had winced when she had said Pete's name, or if it had been completely unconscious. She realized that hearing his name froze even his insides momentarily.  
  
Pete was of a different era, a different lifetime. Excalibur seemed like centuries ago, despite the fact that it was merely a decade or so. They had been different people then, less complicated and less weighed down. Except for Pete. Kurt imagined that Pete Wisdom had emerged from his mother's womb weighed down with the pressures of the world and he couldn't conceive of the man changing. He remembered meeting with Meggan two days ago in Limbo when the Queen of the Otherworld came to visit to express her condolences. Kurt and Amanda had often seen her and Brian when their two realms met and planned together, but Kurt couldn't recall seeing Meggan in such an excitable state in a long time.  
  
She had flitted around Kurt, nervously twisting her long blonde hair around her slim pale fingers, her blue eyes anxiously and excitedly darting back and forth.  
  
"Did you hear, Kurt?" she had asked, her toes hovering several inches above the ground, "did you hear about MI-X?"  
  
"MI-X?" Kurt had blinked, confused. The name seemed familiar, but with all the talk about Xavier and the controversy, he couldn't remember.  
  
"MI-X, Pete's group!" It still wasn't connecting with him. Shaking her head, she circled in behind Kurt. "Pete Wisdom. Pete Wisdom is going to Charles' funeral."  
  
Kurt was tempted to lie to Kitty suddenly, to tell her that he didn't know anything about Pete coming so that he wouldn't be the one to add more pressure to her. But he couldn't do it. It seemed like a cruel trick, to relieve her of her worries only to have her running into him later.  
  
"Yes," he finally breathed. "Yes, Kitty, Pete is coming."  
  
She was still for a moment, her brown eyes flickering across the floor. Slowly her head rose and she set her chin forward. There was a ghost of a smile on her face.  
  
"Good," she said and walked off.  
  
*******  
  
Red wouldn't stop kicking the ground and it was beginning to get Hugh more than a little annoyed.  
  
"Stop it," Hugh growled, peering out at Red from underneath his light brown hair. He rubbed his left leg, still cramped from the plane ride, and leaned forward towards Red. She was pacing up and down the gravel road before the Westchester chapel where the funeral was to be held as Hugh was sitting sideways in the passenger seat of the rental car, his body perched on the edge of the car seat, his legs resting out on the pavement out of the open car door.  
  
Red paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder at Hugh and narrowing her eyes. "Drop. Dead."  
  
"I'm enjoying this time with you as well, Redhead." He flipped his hair back and tucked it under his ear. He was overdue for a haircut, and he felt hugely uncomfortable in his stiff suit. He wondered what the hell he was doing here.  
  
"If you call me that again," Red growled, "I will rip your balls out through your mouth."  
  
"Promises, promises," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Why are you so worked up?"  
  
She shrugged and continued pacing up and down. "Tried to do it Xavier's way years ago and needless to say, it didn't work out." She bit her lip and looked up and down the dirt road. "I didn't make too many friends either, believe it or not."  
  
"Nooooo," Hugh responded with mock surprise. He could have sworn that he saw a sliver of a smile on her face. "But that's a load of shite, Red. You usually don't get so nervous about people who don't like you or you would nervous a whole lot more of the time."  
  
She stopped and glared, not at him, but through him. "Three guesses."  
  
Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, "Kitty Pryde."  
  
"So you're not so stupid after all."  
  
"Nawh, don't let the good looks fool you."  
  
She snorted. "You know, maybe we can help each other out."  
  
Hugh heard the last five words and automatically tuned Red out. Her schemes were bad enough to begin with; it was far worse to get yourself sucked into them. "Hey, is Cloe gonna be here?"  
  
She frowned intensely at him. "You know she's staying behind with Rachel."  
  
"Why isn't Rachel comin'?"  
  
Now he had really gotten underneath Red's skin. "Maybe because she doesn't want to fall asleep at a funeral for some demented old cripple like the rest of us? Jeez, Hugh, what's-"  
  
"Do you really think that's why?" He leaned back in the car seat, speaking as dramatically as he could. "They say that she's the one who killed him."  
  
"Javla helvete! Hugh, will you stop trying to change the subject? Or at least stop being so transparent about it." She huffed and fumbled around in her coat pocket for a cigarette. "You know I don't care who killed him."  
  
Hugh sighed, defeated. "What's the subject, Red?"  
  
"Us helping each other. You want someone, I want someone, they might want each other...." She studied his face and Hugh did everything in his power to keep it completely blank. "Do I have to spell it out?!" she finally shouted, exasperated. "I want Pete and you want Kitty." She looked at his still blank expression. "I mean, don't lie. It's obvious you're after her."  
  
"Look, Red," he said as he watched the younger woman lit her cigarette. "We all know that you've been after Wisdom for forever, for whatever your reasons are. But I very much doubt that he's going to get back with someone he dated a decade ago just because her husband died last year." He shook his head thoughtfully. "That's pretty tacky, even for him."  
  
She was completely pissed at him now and she began to suck the life out of her cigarette. "Can't you just keep the little kat Kat busy? She'll make a nice addition to your collection."  
  
"Have you ever stopped and thought about WHY you want Pete?" Hugh asked, completely ignoring Red's comments. "It's not like he's exactly a catch. You know what I think?"  
  
Red rolled her eyes viciously, violently stomping out her cigarette underneath her boots. "Oh, are you going to go all Olivia on me now?"  
  
He continued to ignore her. "You don't like men. You probably hate us. Can't blame you, the vast majority of us are relatively disgusting. Men utterly repulse you, but you're still a red blooded heterosexual woman with a plethora of insecurities 'bout being attractive and needed and all that. So you go for the man who will touch you with his ten foot pole, but he won't involve you enough so that you have to get closer than those ten feet."  
  
"Far at helvete," Red spat out, turned on her heel and stomped off, leaving Hugh and the rental car behind. He shrugged, was surprised that he was close enough to right that he hit a nerve and waited for his boss to get there.  
  
******  
  
Kitty was more than lost in the small room that was off to the right of the chapel's altar. She had spoken at a funeral or two before, unfortunately, but not at one where her feelings had been so mixed, where she had been put so in charge of it all. She sat crumpled in a wooden chair in the corner and was vaguely aware that she was sitting on something that was probably a priest's vestments. She would have asked Kurt, but he had thankfully agreed to do the hard work of greeting and mingling all the other mourners.  
  
Mourners. Was she mourning? She didn't feel particularly mournful. She was exhausted, beaten down, numb to it all. But she was having a hell of a hard time feeling mournful for the death of this man.  
  
She had received the call on her cell from Olivia at MI-X about twenty minutes before she was supposed to meet with Xavier. Rachel is awake, the woman had said, and was blabbering something about Piotr and Xavier. What Rachel had said didn't matter to Kitty. What mattered was that she was awake. She had gotten her back again.  
  
And so her step was a little too light, her face a little too excited when she threw open the door to Xavier's office and found his body. She remembered that she hadn't screamed, that she had been too shocked to. She had wandered through the rest of the mansion, making her way through swells of mutant school children, waving absent-mindedly at Rahne, not really seeing where she was walking until she had ended up at the small house attached to the mansion where the Summers lived. Scott came to the door breathless, speaking too hurriedly about Emma for Kitty to get a word in edge-wise. He kept pulling at Kitty's arm for her to enter their house, saying she had to see his wife Emma who had some sort of burning fever and was non-responsive and make sure she was okay. Finally, Kitty got him off her and, in a calm and cool voice that belied the emotions inside her, told him about the dead body of Xavier lying in his office.  
  
Since then, she hadn't seen anyone from Xavier's, save Kurt and Amanda. She had been slightly aware of them coming to her house to talk with her, but Kurt had always sent them away on her behalf. She had received the phone call from Emma though, her slightly faltering voice telling her that in his will, Xavier had chosen Kitty to deliver his eulogy.  
  
And then there was the second call from Cloe Olivia, her voice even worse than Emma's, hesitantly laying before Kitty a mass of evidence that Kitty had no idea what to do with. Olivia had told Kitty that she had discovered that Charles had been inside Rachel's mind, that he was the cause of Rachel's breakdown, that Charles seemed to have been inside other people's minds as well. She laid out a hesitant theory that for the past few years Xavier had penetrated the minds of many of those around him and had done some minor 'adjustments' so they would go along with what he deemed best for them. And then she unveiled her most painful statement.  
  
Rachel had confessed to entering Xavier's mind, learning that it was not a stray bullet as he claimed that had felled her husband Piotr but instead an aneurysm caused by Xavier himself and had then cooked Xavier's brain from the inside out.  
  
Kitty had trouble remembering if she had received Emma's phone call before or after Cloe's. She continued to assume that it was before Cloe's since she knew that if she had been told she was to be the one to deliver a eulogy for the man who had murdered her husband, she would have destroyed something. But then again, it was very possible that she had and simply could not remember.  
  
Later had come all the other questions and accusations. Xavier must have known about Piotr not being Lilly's father. Why did he lie about it? To keep Kitty in the fold? Then why kill Piotr? What was the point of everything Xavier had done? When did Xavier become so heartless, so uncaring?  
  
What had she done to deserve this nightmare?  
  
Whatever it was, it wasn't anything that was about to end soon.  
  
Kitty could hear the chapel growing louder with more urgent whispering. She closed her eyes and imagined everyone that was sitting out there. Would Jean be there? What about Jubilee? Would there be a visible divide in the crowd, between those hating Xavier and those hating Rachel?  
  
Where would Pete be?  
  
She hated that everything came back to him. But she had to see him, if only to apologize. She wasn't sure yet if she was going to tell him about Lilly, or even if she should. She thought that when this day had gotten here, she would have figured out what to do. But she was just as clueless now as she had ever been before.  
  
There was a knock, and Kurt was at the door, peering in. "Kitty," his voice was hushed, "it's time."  
  
It must have been hours since she had been sitting there, then. Not that it mattered. She thought she was probably going to feel like this for the rest of her life.  
  
She stood up, grabbed her notes and walked out in front of Xavier and the mourners.  
  
********  
  
Hello everyone. Some of you know me, maybe most of you. For those of you who don't, my name is Katherine Pryde. I first met Charles over twenty years ago when I was thirteen. Now I'm twenty-nine and in those sixteen years, I have saved the world countless times, saved the actual universe once or twice, gone back and forth through time, have met the most amazing people, have loved with all my heart and lost too many of the ones I've loved. I've become a widow, an orphan and a mother. This, both the good and the bad, is because of Charles Xavier.  
  
(A pause and an audible sigh.)  
  
Look, I know that this feels odd to do. To try to celebrate the life of this man with so many murmurings going on about what he may have done to our minds and us. I have just as much cause as any to be angry: I've lost my husband and the love of my life because of Xavier. But you have to remember; there will be time for anger later. Now, we must mourn the passing of a man so many high ambitions. He sacrificed so much to give us his Dream, this hope of a life without bigotry. Over and over again, he put his students' needs before his own. We were all his children and he loved and accepted us accordingly- even those of us who would be loved and accepted by no one else. You know who you are.  
  
(A short chuckle and a warm laugh throughout the audience.)  
  
When I was young, I didn't always understand that. God knows that I thought he was crazy when he accepted Rogue. But he was right about her. He always did manage to see the very best in people, to comprehend their potentional. Even at the end, all he wanted was to help and protect us. But I guess he had lost the way. A lot of us have lost the way over the years. Except while Charles was always there for us to pull us back, there was no one to pull him back.  
  
I would like to thank you all for coming.  
  
******  
  
She was so alone.  
  
Will had been cornered by Hank. Kali had gone off to give her condolences. Kent was around somewhere, probably hanging after Kali. Hugh had wandered off to chat some women up a while ago. And she couldn't find Pete.  
  
She couldn't find Kitty either. Logically, that meant that the two were together.  
  
Red stopped pacing in the church hall and took a seat in the last row of pews. She didn't belong here and everyone knew it. She had done her best to smile pleasantly at the people she had briefly known with the New Mutants, but it had exhausted her. This whole thing exhausted her.  
  
Better to just face it. She was tired.  
  
She was exhausted, drained and beaten down. Five years of chasing after a guy, half-heartedly or not, will do that to a girl. And then there was the scorn she had to deal with, the animosity that practically flowed off of Kali, the fear that slowly seeped out of Kent. She remembered exactly every look they had given her, every chill in the room, every awkward silence. She was so damn tired of remembering everything.  
  
She had tried the drinking to forget for a while. It didn't work. She would wake with a nasty headache and not only remember everything she wanted to forget in mind numbing detail but she also knew everything that had happened while she was drunk, something most people are spared from.  
  
Her mutant power didn't suit her. She had the personality of a fire starter, like Pete, or some other sort of combat ability. Leave the filming and the storing to those blank enough to be written on.  
  
Red wasn't stupid. She saw how much Kitty's daughter had looked like Pete the last time she saw her. She knew what was going on. And she knew that no matter how much Pete might still resent Kitty or fear her or want to stay away from her, he would be with her again one day. Lilly would see to that.  
  
And so then Red's safety would be over. Pete would toss her, for real this time, out and onto the streets. There would be no man who understood to cling to, no one to help her make the memories go away, if only for a second.  
  
Just thinking of them now in abstract made them start to flood back....  
  
She stood up and held her stomach. She felt like she was going to be sick.  
  
*******  
  
Emma looked around at the throngs of people and felt like she was going to be sick.  
  
She hadn't planned on coming. She had been suffering heavily from a physic backlash since Xavier had died. Other telepaths the world over had supposedly felt it, but she had been within a mile of it and it had been the worst feeling she had ever felt.  
  
But Scott had pleaded with her. He needed her there, he said, he wouldn't be able to do it without her. So she had come. And she knew it was a mistake.  
  
As soon as she heard the allegations about Xavier tampering with minds, she knew it was true. She almost told the others this. She almost told them that for the majority of the past ten years, parts of her face and head had turned to diamond randomly without her willing it. But she had kept it quiet for the last decade and there was no use in starting trouble now.  
  
And then there was Jean to worry about. Everywhere, she was hearing whispers that she had come back.  
  
Emma deduced that Jean's sudden breakdown, divorce from Scott and disappearance could very well be attributed to Xavier. Intellectually, she had no problem with that. It was when she continued to draw more deductions from these assumptions that she began to have problems.  
  
If Xavier had intended Jean and Scott to divorce, was it such a leap to assume that he had made Emma and Scott marry?  
  
She had never seen herself as the marrying type, and yet here she was, married to Scott Summers with a child on the way. She was the co- headmistress of the Academy, a respected teacher who often took her kids on field trips.  
  
What part of this made any sense?  
  
It didn't sound like her at all.  
  
She had been married to Scott for six years now. They had been sharing a bed for seven. She was about to have his child.  
  
And suddenly, Emma realized that she didn't know him at all.  
  
******  
  
He finally found her, sitting outside on the front lawn of the chapel. He watched her for a few moments. He wasn't aware that he was looking for her.  
  
"Hello, Pete," she said. Her voice was just above a whisper. It hurt him to hear her so fragile.  
  
"Kit," he responded, nodding in acknowledgement. He sat down next to her on the grass, not bothering to fix his pants underneath him. Screw the suit.  
  
Looking over at her, he couldn't help but feel something for her. With her soft brown hair blowing about her face, her deep eyes watching her daughter run around Kurt and Amanda's son and Rogue and Remy's children, she was everything he wasn't, everything he didn't want. But why did he still feel something?  
  
"I'm sorry," he said, his tongue tripping slightly over his words, "for your losses." She shrugged and he frowned. She wasn't going to make this easy for him. "And I'm sorry about what happened with us. Well, I'm not really sorry because you had to go and be a bitch and invite me to your wedding to-" "Shut up." Her voice was small but sharp and there were tears in her eyes. "Just shut up, Pete, and listen to me." He raised his head slowly, his mouth slightly open, flinching a bit to himself. She wouldn't look at him. Her eyes stared straight, flickering slightly.  
  
"I didn't mean to have all this happen. Right after I left..... well, right after I left you, I found out that I was pregnant, Xavier told me that it was Piotr's so we got married and that was that. It was nothing I wanted. I wanted...."She trailed off. "Do you know why he left me that night, Pete?" He knew whom she was referring to. "He left because he realized something I should have known all along. But it was Charles and I never expected he would lie to me." Her eyes flashed angrily. "I can't believe he would take so much from me and still expect me to stand up there and say nice things about-"  
  
"Kit," he interrupted her as gently as he could. "What did Piotr realize?" It felt odd, almost painful, saying his name without venom. He noticed Kitty wince and he sighed to himself; he hated how she still cared.  
  
"He realized," her voice sounded shaky, "that Lilly wasn't his."  
  
A few feet away, Lilly had slipped free from her blank shoes and her white tights were quickly becoming covered with grass stains. Pete watched her do a small somersault, evading Christian Wagner's clutches and she rolled out victorious, clutching his skin colored tail. He heard the sounds of a baby crying some yards away, maybe the Wagner's Helen or maybe the Braddock's Elisabeth. Everywhere around him, around this funeral, was life.  
  
"Pete," she softly called him back and he remembered he was talking to Kitty about something very important.  
  
"Pete," she said, "Lilly is yours."  
  
His fingers twitched and he whispered desperately for a cigarette. He thought about Red pacing angrily in the hall of the chapel, Meggan beaming at him with a round body, Xavier's body lying in a fresh new box, Piotr's decomposing not so far away.  
  
"Are you sure?" He was vaguely aware that his question might upset her, but he felt he was a million times away.  
  
"Yes," she said. "After Piotr.... suspected, I got an independent paternity test done."  
  
"Oh." What the hell did she want him to say? What could she expect him to do? All of a sudden he had a child, a daughter, who was completely foreign to him, a girl who had already loved a father. Lilly didn't need him; god knows his parents had been crap, how was he supposed to do any better?  
  
"Listen," Kitty said finally, breaking the silence. "I'm not telling you this because I want anything from you. I just felt you should know." She shook her head. "I'm not even planning to tell her till she's older, anyway."  
  
"Ashamed of me, are you?"  
  
"Don't start." She shrugged, and looked desperately at him. "I don't know what to do." She paused. "What do you think?"  
  
"Doesn't really matter, but I'd like to know her, I suppose."  
  
"I'm thinking of joining MI-X, you know. I can't stay in the states. I'm so disenfranchised with this whole X-Men business. And I don't know myself anymore. For the past decade, I've had him in my head, and I'm not sure what's me and what's not me."  
  
"They've been saying that will clear up soon. That his influence will fade."  
  
She was slightly crying now. "It doesn't matter. It's too late. He's already taken so much from me. My husband," she breathed.  
  
He stood up, shuffling his weight back and forth uncomfortably. "You really miss him, huh?' he finally managed. He sounded pathetic, even to him.  
  
"What?" Kitty looked up at him, blinking. And then she sighed heavily. "Don't you get it, Pete? I'm not talking about Piotr." She looked away. "I'm talking about you."  
  
Her crying wasn't silent now. It was loud and ragged, her breaths coming in broken sobs. Pete looked at her and had no idea what to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small arm reach out and place a hand on Kitty's shoulder. He raised his head and saw Lilly. He saw his daughter.  
  
"Mommy," she breathed. Her face was slowly collapsing, her blue eyes shining. "Mommy, please don't cry."  
  
Kitty reached out and violently brought Lilly to her chest in a ferocious hug. Pete could barely hear the muffled sniffles of mother and daughter over the shrieks of the nearby children. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Elisabeth had joined in with Christian and Adrienne, the two older toddlers circling around the infant Braddock who was reaching out for Christian's tail. Christian kept dangling the tail alluringly close to Elisabeth's face, only to pull it away every time she drew near. After several turns of this, Elisabeth began to cry hysterically. In one swift move, both Meggan and Kurt were there, Meggan scooping her baby up into her arms and Kurt grabbing his son by the ear. He lead Christian away, gently chastising him but doing so in a way that Christian didn't get upset or mad himself. And Meggan had successfully quieted her daughter and passed her over to Brian, who was tossing her into the air much to her delight. Pete had never had parents like that. How was he supposed to spontaneously learn to be like that?  
  
Maybe Kitty could read still him, because she calmed at the moment, pulling Lilly away from her as the two both sniffled. Smiling teary at Pete, she turned her daughter- no, *their* daughter- around to face him.  
  
"Lilly," she said, and her voice was a lot stronger than he would have thought, "I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is Pete Wisdom. He's one of my old good friends."  
  
Lilly looked thoughtfully at him for a second, rubbing her nose with the back of her friend. "Hi, Pete Wisdom." She took the edges of her dress and did a slightly awkward curtsey. "My name is Lilith Pryde. But you can call me Lilly."  
  
He gave her a lopsided smile. It felt like his heart was in his bowels. "It's very nice to meet you, Lilly. How old are you?"  
  
"Five years old," she said, holding up five fingers proudly. She smiled, cocking her head as she looked at him. "You live in Brit-tan, right? With Auntie Rachie?"  
  
Pete looked up briefly at Kitty, amused that Lilly knew something of her. "It's Brit-IN. And I don't live with your Aunt per se, but she lives very close by and one of my friends takes care of her." Cloe would be amused to hear herself referred to as a friend of his.  
  
"Mommy?" Lilly turned towards her mother, looking up at her. "What does 'per se' mean?"  
  
Kitty smiled and ruffled her daughter's hair up. "It's just a fancy grown up expression." She glanced at Pete. "Pete isn't used to talking to kids."  
  
"You don't have any kids, Mr. Wisdom?" Lilly asked. Pete rationally knew it was just a normal curious kid question, but in the context it felt like fate was playing another cruel joke on him.  
  
"I do," he said. Was that really him talking? It felt like an alien voice, not his. "She lives with her mom."  
  
"I live with my mom too," Lilly chirped, looking up at Kitty and tugging on her mother's hand. Then she looked back at Pete and flashed him the biggest smile he had ever seen. "Maybe we can play together one day, yeah?"  
  
"Yeah. Maybe." This was too surreal to be happening. In the distant, he heard the hum of a rental car and Red's voice calling for him. "So," he finally said, "when should we expect you in London?"  
  
Kitty's head snapped up as she looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh....um, in a few weeks, I suppose." She was doing a very bad job of hiding her excitement. Lilly was doing even worse as she clamped a hand over her mouth and clung to her mother's leg, bouncing slightly. "We're mostly packed," she continued, "It's just a matter of settling some other things."  
  
"Great," Pete said. He reached a hand out to Kitty, grasped hers tightly and shook. "Ms. Pryde, welcome to MI-X."  
  
And he left then, back to the rental car where the rest of his teammates sat. Kali was driving again, and he began to wonder if she even had a driving license and if she did, how she got one. It was the kind of time where you worry about random things like that. He noticed Red huddled in the back seat out of the corner of his eye, but he was watching two girls on the lawn of a church.  
  
Lilly was the only one who waved goodbye. Kitty just gazed at him with a look that scorched his soul.  
  
****  
  
Translations from the Swedish: Javla helvete- Devil's hell, a common curse in Swedish. More like the equivalent to 'f**king hell' in English Kat- Horny Far at helvete- Go to hell 


	11. Gone

Title: Gone

Dear Daddy,

I'm making this from Lon-done! Lon-done is a fun place compared to home. Mommy says I should start tryin' to call this home, but it's hard. But I think I would like Lon-done to be home. There's kings and queens and horses and castles and people talk funny like Kent and Pete and Hugh! Even funnier than Uncle Kurt, and that's pretty funny.

I didn't have a lot of friends before so I'm nervous 'bout going to the schools here. Mommy said I should go though, she said it would be good for me. I'm scared that the other kids won't be able to understan' me because I don't speak British and all. And they might get mad and yell at me when I set things on fire. But I don't mean to! I just do it on accident sometimes.

In Lon-done with Mommy's new friends, I am happier, because they don't get mad if I make a fire because most of them can do neat things like that too. Aunt Rachel can even make fire too, just like me! Sometimes Kali will show me her other two arms, which are really cool. I wish I had four arms and a tail like Uncle Kurt so I could hang upside down on the monkey bars and all the other kids would like me.

Mommy cries a lot at night still, but now she has Aunt Rachel to take care of her instead of just me or Uncle Kurt. I don't like listening to her cry, so I usually go watch some TV in the big room. A lot of the channels don't have shows for kids, so Hugh comes to watch with me and make sure I don't watch shows that are too old for me. I think my favorite is the Fairly Odd Parents, because even though I have aunts and uncles who can fly and are different colors, I don't have any fairy godparents! It would be nice to have some, but I don't have a whole lot to wish for. I would wish for you to come back, but Mommy says you're in a better place now so you probably wouldn't wanna come back. But I miss you.

'Member the time we went for a Christmas tree? That was so much fun, even though it was really cold and snowy and no tree was perfect until we went deep into the woods. But it was great when we found the perfect one! You cut it down so easily, and Mommy and me helped you carry it back to the car. That was the prettiest Christmas tree ever. We didn't have a tree last Christmas. Mommy said it wasn't right to do that, but I kinda missed it. She said we had to show you respect or somethin', but that got me mad because I thought you would want us to have a pretty Christmas tree. Sometimes I just wish you would come back for a visit from the better place to let us know what you want.

There's a lot of new people here that I met. There's Aunt Rachel's doctor, Cloe, whose really pretty and she says she's a mind doctor, not a body doctor like Will. I don't really know what that means, but I guess if you cut your mind or somethin', then she puts a band-aid on for you. That's what Will does when I cut my legs which is A LOT! I fall down a lot because I'm always running so fast and sometimes I forget to phase and bump into things. Will is nice, and he always tickles me and makes me laugh until Mommy comes by and then he pretends to be mean and tells me to be more careful but he always winks at me and sneaks me a lollipop when Mommy's not looking. I think Kali and Kent are in love, which Mommy tells me is what happens before you get married and that's why people get married. I don't know if they're going to get married, because whenever I ask them, Kali laughs and Kent turns all red. Kent talks British and is kinda shy, but he's cool because whenever he hurts his legs, they grow back all silverly and metally like you used to and I think 'bout you.

And Red and Pete. I don't really know them good, but Aunt Rachel tells me that Mommy and Pete and you used to all be friends together and be on a team together. Pete talks British too, and he smokes a lot so he kinda smells bad. Red has REALLY red hair, even redder than Aunt Rachel's! She's so cool! She's always walking around in really cool clothes and saying really cool things. She can remember everything all the time! I keep wanting to ask her if she knows my favorite book by memory so she could read it to me, but I don't think she wants to hang out with a little kid like me.

But the best is Hugh! You would really like him Daddy, because he's a really cool guy. He's a celebrity! He takes me out to the park sometimes, and to the zoo, and there's always lots of people taking our picture. He got to be a celebrity because he's very good with magic. And not like pulling bunnies out of a hat, but like talking to demons and making dragons and flying and really cool stuff like that! Sometimes he makes really pretty pictures of butterflies and kittens come to life for me, and it's a lot of fun. It's the most fun when Mommy and Hugh and me all go to the zoo or to the park together because he really can make Mommy laugh! And when Mommy's happy, I get really happy.

Red told me once that she thinks that Hugh really likes Mommy. I didn't know what she meant, because I really like Mommy too, and she said that maybe Mommy and Hugh were gonna fall in love. I guess that would mean that Hugh would be my new Daddy, but I don't like that idea. You're always gonna be my Daddy, right? I don't know if I would be upset if Mommy and Hugh fell in love, because then they would both be happy. Actually, that's good because then we'd all be happy and together forever! But he still wouldn't be you, Daddy. He would be Daddy-Hugh, not Daddy-Daddy. You're always gonna be Daddy-Daddy.

I love you Daddy-Daddy. And miss you too.

Lilly.

The moment Hugh saw Kitty smile at him, he knew he was done for.

He hadn't been expecting it when Pete announced that they would be joining us in London, but it sounded like Red did. She railed about the dangers of having a former X-woman who had her mind screwed with around, let alone a little girl who already displayed formable powers. He didn't understand it either, but he didn't really mind. As long as Kitty kept smiling that way at him, he was absolutely fine.

The reunion between her and Pete was rather stilted, but between Kitty and Rachel was another story. The woman had been living with us for over a year, and spent time with us even before that, and when she saw Kitty was the first time Hugh ever saw Rachel smile. Kitty has that effect on people. He knows he's been smiling a lot more recently.

Red seems to take that as some sort of invitation to talk to him more. She complains that MI-X is falling prey to all the old vices that the X-Men fell to. And for her, the worst of all is that we're all coupling up. Kali and Kent. Will and his flame of the month. Red and Pete. And, though no one really talks about it, Rachel and Cloe. Out of all these 'couples,' Red's getting the least love and it's driving her nuts. He knows for a fact that it enrages her to see Kitty every morning, and that daughter of hers. Red hates children. Red hates Kitty.

He thinks he might really like Kitty. Which makes him nervous. He's never really liked anyone before, no childhood sweetheart, no soul mate discovered at any of his pub and party crawls. He guess it didn't help that he wasn't particularly looking, but he's not looking now either, so why can't he get Kitty's smile out of my mind? It makes him do weird things, like turn down one-night stands and stay in watching Teletubbies with her kid.

And he's pretty sure Red is the only one who notices.

Kitty certainly hasn't noticed. She's withdrawn, detached, talking to herself a lot. Cloe told Hugh at first that it was probably because of all of Xavier's mind tampering, but he doesn't really know if he believes that. At night, he can hear whispering coming from Rachel's room, and he recognizes Kitty's voice. He thinks he hears her crying. Most of the evenings, Lilly spends time with Hugh, occasionally Pete. But Pete is dead set against watching Teletubbies, so it's usually Hugh.

Red initially wanted to be more obvious with Pete and tried kissing him a lot in front of the rest of MI-X at breakfast. He always shrugged her off, growling, and she stopped because she was coming off more as a clingy bad date than anything else. Kali immediately liked Kitty, some sort of unspoken bond against the relationship between Pete and Red. Will and Kitty, they get along fine, as they're both Jews and the only Yanks on the active team. Hugh's heard quiet talking and loud laughs from Hugh's room at night, but Kitty always leaves early so Will's boyfriend can take over. Kent is rarely seen anymore without Kali. Red snarls at Kitty.

But Hugh can't stay away from Kitty, and her smile.

A Tuesday night found them sitting along the short wall around the London estate of MI-X. Their feet dangled above the ground, and Hugh felt like he was thirteen again.

"So," he said after a while, "how does this all compare with the X-Men?" He realized five seconds too late that it might have been the wrong question. He studied her face for any sort of wince.

She was fine. "It's different. It's more like Excalibur than anything else." She shook her head. "It feels a bit odd to be so supported by the government and the people." She leaned forward, kicking her feet back and forth idly. "What about you? You like doing this?"

Hugh tilted his head and grinned. "It softens up my image. I was worried I was coming off as too much of a hedonist."

Kitty snorted on her drink, her hand flying up to her nose. "And hanging out with people in tight spandex makes you look less of a hedonist?"

He chuckled a bit, shaking his head. "We don't do that here, Kit. Pete's much more of a jeans and trench coat kinda guy, and I think we're all more than happy to follow in his footsteps."

"It's weird," she said, shaking her head and wrapping her arms tightly around her body. "I miss the uniforms. I mean, I realize how ridiculous they were, but they helped draw a line. It was like wearing a mask, you know?"

"In a way," he added, looking straight out, trying to stop staring at her body and the way she was holding it, "that's part of the problem. We don't have codenames. We don't have uniforms. We're just normal people who have extraordinary abilities with nothing to hide." He shrugged. "People trust us more. They can relate to us."

"I guess that was something I helped make worse," she sighed. "It was always 'us' and 'them.' We didn't want them to relate to us, or us to relate to them." She turned her head away and added softly, "We wanted to deny we had any normal problems."

"You must miss Piotr. A lot." Hugh had been around for Pete's reception of the wedding invitation and had seen the chaos it caused. But he still couldn't help but feel more for the young widow, understand her despair more.

She turned back to him suddenly, her face twisted. "You know, you're the first one who's even mentioned his name to me."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I appreciate someone not treating me like I'm made of glass." She smiled at him, brilliantly. "I'm not as fragile as everyone here seems to think."

"You seem pretty strong to me," he said. God, he sounded like he was sixteen all over again.

Her smile was smaller, but still there. "I do miss Piotr. But not in the way you would imagine." She frowned. "I miss him for Lilly's sake."

"I like Lilly." He smiled. "She's a spirited young lady. Like her mother."

Kitty snorted. "God help me when she turns thirteen. I don't know if I could handle much more spirit."

He cocked his head, tossed his hair. "You'll be fine. You're a great mum."

Again, a snort. "I'm not sure." She rubbed her neck, looking over at him. "I never thought I would actually be a mother. I mean, when I was little I had all those dreams about having a fancy wedding, a great husband, 2.5 kids. But after you wear the colors for a while, all of that stuff seems almost too ordinary. And too unlikely."

"But now all those dreams came true. Right?"

A frown twisted her features and she turned away. "I don't trust dreams too much anymore."

Right. Xavier and his dream. "Sorry, Kit. Always put me foot in the mouth."

She quirked an eyebrow. "That's the first time I really noticed an accent. Are you British?"

"Oh Jaysus," he said, smiling, "don' dare compare me to that shiite."

She smile, laughed a bit. "Irish then?"

He nodded. "I've been 'famous'," he did the quotes in the air, "for so long that my accent is pretty much all gone."

She ran a hand through her hair. She leaned in and beamed at him. "I like your accent."

And Hugh knew he was gone.


End file.
